David, Thank you for all your fascinating and informative posts! Here is a link posted to Birdchat by Paulo Boute a little while ago:
Sharing: https://www.kut.org/post/surprising-reason-thousands-birds-dropped-dead-across-southwest Thomas Heinrich Boulder, CO [email protected] > On Oct 6, 2020, at 12:46 PM, DAVID A LEATHERMAN <[email protected]> wrote: > > > A lot of people have been asking about what the recent fires causing much of > the smoke along the Front Range and out on the eastern plains are having on > birds. While it is normal for many mountain species to be undergoing > dispersal and altitudinal migrations at this time of year, I think it is > fairly safe to say one species that has been impacted by the upper montane > zone fires (upper reaches of ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine and > lower reaches of spruce-fir) is Mountain Chickadee, and maybe so some extent > Black-capped Chickadee. Pretty much everywhere I have been in the last two > weeks has them: Lamar, Eaton Cemetery, Cherry Creek Reservoir, Jackson > Reservoir, Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins, Crow Valley. Reports from > birders on COBIRDS and eBird have reported them at many other low elevation > sites. This feels like more of them down low and out east than is normal. > > Jays are another group that historically wanders at this time of year, so it > is tough to say about them being influenced by the fires. But if we get > reports of things like Clark's Nutcrackers and Canada Jays out east, more > reports of Pinyon Jays way east of I-70, large numbers of Woodhouse's > Scrub-Jays continuing down and east all winter, then maybe it would be > somewhat safe to speculate about an influence on them from the fires, too. > > This type of thing is good to document, so I encourage the continuation of > reports. > > And if anyone hears the results of autopsies conducted on the dead birds > found in New Mexico and elsewhere in the West, please share that information > on COBIRDS. > > Dave Leatherman > Fort Collins > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Colorado Birds" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CY4PR0601MB37631D79EB99C47243DACCDFC10D0%40CY4PR0601MB3763.namprd06.prod.outlook.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/E2BC6AC0-D89A-4C70-8892-F590C61578E7%40gmail.com.
