I think I posted about the Loggerhead Shrike larder on the Pawnee (Weld CR37
north of CR114). This will be the subject of the next "The Hungry Bird" in
"Colorado Birds" (October 2015) so I'll not detail this event too much here.
Suffice it to say a lot of items of great diversity can be impaled in the
vicinity of just one shrike nest, probably by just one male. What impressed me
the most about this particular situation near the Central Plains Experiment
Station was the heavy use of birds, including "naked" babies obviously pulled
out of nests. With the lush green growth and certain pastures solid yellow
with blooming Greenthread (thanks, Amber Carver for the ID) it is easy to
mistake this year's prairie as a tranquil place. Predators on vertebrates are
having a bumper year right along side, and often because of, the herbivores and
insectivores.
At Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins (Larimer) I am aware of 4 active
Broad-tailed Hummingbird nests. I thought I heard the gibberish of a
Black-chinned male the other day but am not certain. The broadtail nests are
in various stages of development, from still under construction to eggs to
almost fledged young. As reported earlier, one nest (the 5th 2015 nest at GC
and there are probably at least a few more, making this a true "colony" like
the literature reports them as having) is totally done and I think I heard the
fledged youngsters giving that distinctive "warbler-like" chip they make that I
don't think anyone has recorded. I have enjoyed seeing the diversity of
materials the female hummers use to craft their work-of-art nests, both the cup
itself and the outside decoration/camo.
In Lower Rist Canyon (Larimer) yesterday I heard an Ovenbird sing briefly one
time at around CR52E mp 15. This is a historic location for them and despite
the 2012 High Park Fire they have persisted in a mostly unburned north-facing
glade. Most of the usual suspects that indicate this a nice lower montane
habitat were there including Plumbeous Vireo, Hammond's Flycatcher, Pygmy
Nuthatch and Red Crossbill. American Three-toed Woodpeckers nested here one
spring/summer but all I saw yesterday while insect-collecting was a flicker and
Hairy Woodpecker.
Further down Rist Canyon (east of the famous "Whale Rock") I watched a parent
pair of American Robins capture and take to a nest several 2/3s-grown
caterpillars of the White-lined Sphinx. These "hornworm" (big spine on the
rear of the abdomen) caterpillars, which are highly variable in color from
mostly green to mostly blackish may be locally abundant in coming weeks. Lots
of vegetation for this eater of a broad range of plants to consume this year
with all the rain. They might even be conspicuous as they cross roads in large
numbers looking for additional food or pupation sites. I would love to hear
from COBIRDS readers about what birds they see eating these, including the date
and location. Refer to "The Hungry Bird" article about them for more details
(CB Vol48(4), October 2014).
We have started an informal group in Fort Collins to monitor Chimney Swifts.
Our initial goals are to just figure out most of the active chimneys (or other
places) and get a handle on early summer numbers. Hopefully we can then get
some numbers from later in the summer that might reflect nest production, and
then additional use of roost chimneys in fall by migrants. Untimately, we
would like to determine trends and maybe do some enhancement with artificial
nest structures to keep a sustainable population of these fascinating urban
providers of free control of West Nile mosquitoes and maybe other pesky
insects. I would encourage other cities and towns to maybe do the same. We
sucked them into the idea of chimneys being "better" than hollow trees. If
they are in trouble, seems like we owe it to them to be part of the solution,
too.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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