Your question shows why you were such a damn good reporter in your newsman
days, Mark. Observation and analysis, to mention a couple of skills.
I have spent more time not just looking into my little backyard patch but
also looking *up.* Looking up into the canopy of the trees and into the
sky. I have observed warblers I've not recorded before. I see the Say's
phoebes foraging, not just hearing their presence. The binos reveal
swallows at much greater heights than I'm accustomed to searching for.
Being right along the Dakota Hogback, I see high-flying raptors, including
what I think was a broadwinged hawk last week but cannot confirm. An
immature bald eagle. Four turkey vultures. A sharp-shinned hawk opting for
a low flyover instead of staking out an attack point in the oaks.
The interaction among the Bullock's orioles and Western tanagers is so more
intimate when I'm simply sitting outside rather than window shopping. The
bushtits don't just hammer at the suet but pick live forage from the scrub
oak next to the feeder. They get used to my presence and even nearly fly to
my hand as I hang out new suet. The red-breasted and white-breasted
nuthatches come close but I don't even need to see them to delight in their
distinctive calls.
We birders know it isn't a silent planet. How sharpened our senses become,
though, when we stop and listen and look and enjoy more deeply. Here's to
giving the once-over twice.
On Friday, May 15, 2020 at 10:54:09 AM UTC-6, Mark Obmascik wrote:
>
> Dave Cameron's post got me thinking: "Granted, this is the first spring
> I've been home every day, and the yard has been good for birds all along,
> but this year is so crazy, I have to pinch myself."
>
> I agree! This spring is the best I can remember along the populated Front
> Range for unusual songbirds, and I'm wondering: Is there something
> different about this year's migration, or do we just have more people with
> more quarantine time looking closer to home?
>
> In prior years, I loved driving to hotspots like Lamar Community College,
> Two Buttes, Tamarack Ranch, and Crow Valley, but now I'm thrilled to be
> within biking distance of Tucker Gulch in Golden, Harriman Lake in
> Littleton, and First Creek in Denver.
>
> Is there something different about this migration's weather that put more
> eastern species in our yards, or does covid mean we are giving the
> once-over twice to places we usually overlook?
>
> Good birding,
>
> Mark Obmascik
> Denver, CO
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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