Hello, Birders. Fantastic convention in Trinidad! Congratulations to Jim Beatty, to the field trip leaders, to the many presenters, and especially to the 200+ wonderful participants for a wonderful event. Special thanks, too, to the folks with the Trinidad Tourism Board and with the Trinidad-Las Animas County Chamber of Commerce, who really rolled out the red carpet for us.
At this writing, the convention checklist stands at 195 bird species. I'm nearly certain that a few fairly common species were detected but not recorded on the master checklist. Please contact me OFFLINE if you're aware that any of the following were recorded during the CFO convention: Great Egret, Bald Eagle, Virginia Rail, Least Flycatcher, Swainson's Thrush, Hermit Thrush, Canyon Towhee, Brewer's Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, and Red Crossbill. Surely, most of those were recorded? Please tell me about it (again, offline), and please help us push our convention list up above 200! Of course, we had many, many highlights. Thanks to Peter Gent, Joe Roller, Nathan Pieplow, Polly Wren, David Waltman and others for already sharing some great birding highlights. Here are a few others, all from Las Animas County: 1. At Bar N I Ranch, in the steep foothills of the Sangre de Cristos, a Peregrine Falcon soaring in tight circles above the impressive "stone wall" for which nearby Stonewall, Colo., is named. 2. At 10,000+ ft. elevation, also at the Bar N I Ranch (it's a big place!), the spectacle of Christian Nunes improbably yet successfully leading nearly 20+ birders in a scramble up a steep, rocky, brushy slope in pursuit of a displaying Dusky Grouse. 3. Near the Trinidad Lake State Park campground, a Flammulated Owl hooting for nearly an hour in the middle of the night. 4. At the astonishing Beatty Canyon Ranch, the sunny pinyon-juniper woods alive with the rapid-fire singing of lovely Gray Vireos, going at it right through the heat of the afternoon. 5. And in the blow-your-mind-away category, no fewer than nine (9)--you read that right--Summer Tanagers at several stops along the Purgatoire River drainage at Beatty Canyon Ranch. Most were after-second-year males, but we saw females and a second-year-male, too. Who knew?--there's a place in Colorado where Summer Tanagers are as common as, or even more common than, such expected fare as Bullock's Orioles, Blue Grosbeaks, and Yellow-breasted Chats. And I know that many of you have many other great tales, involving Black Phoebes (quite a few were reported), a Merlin and a Gray Flycatcher, Red-necked Phalaropes and White-rumped Sandpipers, a couple of Scott's Orioles and Grace's Warblers, a Glossy Ibis, and a whole lot more. Bears, too, and Sandia hairstreaks; and the solar eclipse on Sunday afternoon was more impressive than I thought it would be. Oh, and one more thing. Hepatic Tanagers...in the plural. We took a bit of a risk with our totem species for the convention (view the gorgeous artwork here: http://cfobirds.org/convention/2012/index.htm); we just weren't sure if we'd find any. Instead, we found at least three, probably more, and they were (fairly) cooperative, probably viewed by more than 100 convention attendees. Ted Floyd tedfloy...@hotmail.com Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
