Hello, Birders. Woohoo! We accomplished our "triple century goal": We saw 100+ birds species, we ate 100+ orange slices, and it was 100+ degrees today in Boulder.
The rest of the story: Early early. At our "undisclosed location" in eastern Boulder County, five of us heard a ghoulish Barn Owl, several Great Horned Owls, a Sora, a spooky Wilson's Snipe, and a night-singing Grasshopper Sparrow. Dick Cheney was a no-show. Figures. Early. Twenty-five us hoofed it to up on top of Gunbarrel Hill, where we watched the red-orange sunrise. As we walked south toward Teller Lake No. 5, we found 1 singing Least Flycatcher, 1 singing Willow Flycatcher, at least 3 adult male Orchard Orioles, 1 Baltimore x Bullock's Oriole, an adult male Great-tailed Grackle, and 1 Eastern Warbling-Vireo. Just south of Teller Lake No. 5, we found 4 Dickcissels and 7 Bobolinks. Not so early. Just a handful of late-risers added to our ranks for the Walden Ponds installment of the Caper. We found one of the adult Green Herons (beautiful!), and we had a bit of a surprise at the 75th Street Bridge: 2 adult Eastern Phoebes. Back at the Cottonwood Marsh lot parking lot, David Gillilan informed us we had already walked 11.6 miles. Also: several Eastern Warbling-Vireos; doting adult Ospreys taking turns canopy-shading their young; American Dippers at a nest; and Wood Ducks at several junctures. Oh, and an unseen Passerina bunting the sang the song of an Indigo Bunting (spit, spit, chew chew, spit it out, chew!). Next we capered to Jim Hamm where we dipped on the Great Crested Flycatcher, but found at least 3 singing Marsh Wrens, very local in summer in Boulder County. We spent the afternoon in and around the outskirts of Ward, where the birding was slow but steady. Nice views of Mountain and Western bluebirds, a female Type 2 Red Crossbill sitting pretty atop a ponderosa pine, and a Band-tailed pigeon also sitting. We tried to steer clear of the civil unrest at the Millsite Inn. We wound down the Caper with a jaunt to the hot pinewoods at Heil Ranch. Our highlight was 4 Eastern Bluebirds!--an adult female, a lovely adult male, and 2 barely fledged juveniles. It was quite birdy here, despite the heat and the advanced hour: lots of Lark Sparrows and Lesser Goldfinches, nuthatches galore, a Wild Turkey, and more. Some wonderful non-avian spectacles: the smoky sunrise; rotund Jupiter and crescent Venus before sunrise; a bush full of giant brown scarabaeid beetles buzzing like angry hornets, and I hope they don't transmit Chagas disease by their relatively painless bites; an annoyed bull snake being escorted by ferocious House Wrens down a mighty cottonwood bough; and THE highlight for many of us, a doe wading across a pond with her tiny fawn swimming behind. Best of all: The wonderful participants! Great to see so many (relatively) young people, including various folks who had never before engaged in "organized" [huh?] birding" and even a few folks who had never been birding AT ALL. And to think: They now assume it's in some sense "normal" to stampede up steep hillsides before sunrise for the privilege of hearing a Grasshopper Sparrow whispering its feeble song on a smoky dawn. And that too-fast bicyclist is surely still scratching his head at the spectacle. The 2nd Great Boulder Caper was a joint outing of the American Birding Association and Denver Field Ornithologists. Our next Caper will be entirely on foot, "The Big Walk" from Teller to the foothills, and a serious run at the Green/BGBY pedestrian Big Day record. 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.
