Good Morning CO Birders, Yesterday evening I was standing on the bluff on the east side of Totten Reservoir at 1800, just outside Cortez, and was about to leave when a Chaetura sp. buzzed by me. I almost dropped my scope. This may not seem like a big deal to CO birders closer to Kansas, but for us who are closer to Utah, a small, dark swift is terribly exciting.
In short order, I was joined by Erik Hendrickson, then Brenda Wright and Coen Dexter. We stayed until nearly dark and managed to see this swift a number of times. We took thousands of photos, some of which had the swift in it. It was joined by a second Chaetura sp. and at one of the times they were together, flying directly over us, all four of us heard a few seconds of rapid, flat tweetering chatter... Chimney Swift! It is a sound I am very familiar with, having grown up in New England. I played Vaux's Swift off my phone after hearing the birds and we all agreed, it was not the sharper, sweeter Pygmy Nuthatchesque squeaks of a Vaux's Swift. PHEW! We were all greatly relieved to hear it. We had spent a lot of time discussing the finer points of Chimney versus Vaux's ID based on field marks and found ourselves about as confident as a person on thin ice (until it/they called). We called them both Chimney Swift because we could not discern any difference between them proportionally. At sunset, we added a very good look at a solo Black Swift and noted the larger size and the decidedly different structure and flight behavior. Since we had stayed until sunset, we gave it a few more minutes because Brenda and Coen had a Lesser Nighthawk at this same spot recently. On cue, a Lesser Nighthawk started coursing back and forth along the slope below us. In short order it was joined by a second Lesser Nighthawk and then a Common Nighthawk, which made for great comparison. Overall, a fantastic evening and enough excitement to keep me sharp dodging Elk on my drive back up to Telluride. Brenda shared the eBird checklist already, which I hope to add to later today. Check it out here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S88891726 Best, Eric ..................... Eric Hynes Telluride, CO --------------------- Box Canyon Birding boxcanyonbirding.com --------------------- Field Guides Birding Tours www.fieldguides.com -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate * Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/CFO/Membership/ --- 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/CAPpN%2B3H07q_ch3aOB8BMrc3fT9svs2WNET948dDrDw8-%3DSy_Hw%40mail.gmail.com.
