The wetlands north of CR74 at Woods Lake had two Great Egrets, a Snowy Egret,
and two Greater Yellowlegs.
Eaton Cemetery had a good assortment of birds feasting on emerging hackberry
psyllids including:
2 latish Townsend's Warblers
3 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
Several Yellow-rumped Warblers
3
Just a heads-up that yesterday at Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins I noticed
the beginning of adult psyllid emergence from galls on the leaves of hackberry.
There are two types, blistergall psyllids and nipplegall psyllids. The ones I
saw flying about (look like tiny gnats when backlit)
Rumors abound about the possible permanent closure following this season of
Crow Valley Campground on the Pawnee National Grasslands near Briggsdale. Any
one with concrete knowledge about this subject is encouraged to comment
(preferably on this forum, not Facebook) regarding the rumor. If
I got to the campground around 11am and stayed until 2:30pm. 90 degrees and
felt hotter. Probably some things present early had flown on by the time I
arrived. Water in Crow Creek pretty much dried up along the south side, with
stagnant stretches and pools recently pounded by cows along the
While today's visit to Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins at the west terminus
of Mountain Avenue was very slow and produced one of the lowest species counts
ever (13), it did include three noteworthy events:
A flock of an estimated 25 Bushtits marauding through the area, checking out
Nice photos, Bill, of a nice bird. Just to make it clear and save the sterling
Denver Audubon Master Birder Class of 2015 going to the trouble of a mass
response, Lark Buntings ARE, indeed, sparrows. At least I think so, unless the
AOU just last night lumped them with Thick-billed Murre.
Yesterday Nina Routh, Mike Serruto and I stopped at the reservoir 2 miles west
of Weld CR77 on CR124 (Adams and Bunker #1 or "Archie Bunker Res" as I think it
should be called, due to the less than happy/friendly folks who live in the
house near the portion that extends on the north side of the
In my recent summary of the 23August-3September visit to Lamar, I forgot to
mention a few things.
Lamar is in Prowers County, Tempel's Grove is in Bent, and the Great Plains
Reservoirs are in Kiowa.
Janeal and I saw and photographed an amazing hungry bird episode at Riverside
Cemetery in
This is not so much intel for fast-twitchers with a full gas tank as a progress
report on this autumn's migration in the Lamar area. As others have stated
overtly or implied, things seem slow getting started. Of course, autumn
migration in Lamar is always behind migration in northern CO. In
The heat of Lamar must have messed me up, despite wearing the goofy hat the
doctor prescribes and sunscreen.
Frankie Valli forgive me. Of course, I know here in the Northern Hemisphere
the norm is four seasons. Frankie, it's Ted who said there's an extra one, the
fifth (as in, now,
It was hot and quiet today migrantwise in Lamar but at the two Lamar
cemeteries, we did have the following:
Riverside Cemetery (Maple Street, north end of town east of Main):
*Great Crested Flycatcher (photographed with a green praying mantis in its
beak!)
Least Flycatcher (1)
Yellow Warbler
Miracles never cease. After 40+ years, and five tries up to CR5 in the last 8
days, I saw Baird's Sparrows in Colorado this morning (8/11) on Larimer CR5.
Following the recipe provided by Nick, David, and Georgia from their most
recent sightings yesterday, I arrived at the spot 1.7 miles
For what it's worth, I have been up at Larimer CR5 between Roads 82 and 92 at
the Baird's Sparrows stretch from 6:15 to 10am both yesterday and today. Among
yesterday's group of 6, and today's of 5, none of us saw or heard Baird's
Sparrows, except maybe one person whose name I didn't catch.
Hello All,
Distinguished wildlife photographer Michael Forsberg and his technical genius
Jeff Dale are in the middle of shooting a documentary on the North Platte River
Basin. The products of their efforts will likely air on PBS, appear in
classrooms, and possibly illustrate a book. One of
Candice et al,
I believe they are getting soil high in minerals missing from their seed-heavy
diets, perhaps including road-treatment salt (in the form of calcium chloride,
sodium chloride, and/or magnesium chloride) that accumulates in dried puddle
areas along roadways. Mag chloride is also
After getting back from a 9-day new Confederate flag survey of Tennessee and
North Carolina (actually my friend Boris and I were hunting aquatic insects), I
was finally able to try for the Larimer CR5 Baird's Sparrows yesterday. I got
there at 7:30 and was told by a couple folks who had gotten
Today the 7th of July on Weld CR49 about half way between CR122 and CR114, I
had a few pairs of territorial Chestnut-collared Longspurs and an Upland
Sandpiper. Both species were in a pasture on the east side of CR49. I also
had at least one more pair of territorial Chestnut-collared
The major happening these days at Grandview Cemetery is the nesting of
Broad-tailed Hummingbirds. As I have proposed before, I think Grandview
constitutes what the literature refers to as this species of hummer nesting in
colonies. Two nests are completely done, with one producing the
Highlights of a trip today, 29June, to Picture Canyon (9 miles south of Baca M
Rd on 18Rd) were:
PAINTED BUNTING (probably the same one reported earlier this spring by Kaempfer
et al, at least one male calling at several locations both south and north of
the main Picnic Area). I did not hear
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
Last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (9-11June) I did the three Breeding Bird
Survey routes assigned to me. Doing them on consecutive days probably comes
perilously close to turning one's passion into work, but due to the CFO
Convention and obligations this week, plus the weather forecast,
Mr. Floyd points out an interesting ABA blog article about names and checklist
order. First off, despite the impression my quiz might give, let me say I do
not regard misspelling a felony. I confess to having messed up
MacGillivray's (and Steller's and wigeon) more than once in my journals.
Which of the following is the correct spelling of a CO bird named after a
professor of English at Edinburgh University in Scotland, who was also a
naturalist, and who helped none other than John James Audubon with his writing?
a) MaGillvray's
b) McGillivray's
c) MacGillivary's
d)
From 9am to 4:30pm I walked on the west side of the Poudre River from the
north end of Sharp Point Drive (jct with Prospect) past the feedlot thru
Prospect Ponds Natural Area (PPNA) to an area perhaps 100 yards southeast of
the Northern CO Environmental Learning Center (NCELC) parking lot (that
Just a heads-up to everybody, a common denominator I am seeing in person and in
looking at photographs taken by others: a lot of insectivorous neotropical
migrants, as this spring migration peaks, are finding Boxelder (Acer negundo)
to be a good restaurant. The reason is a small caterpillar
I took a long walk along the river south of Prospect today, starting at the
Business Park lot at the north end of Sharp Point Drive, thru Prospect Ponds
NA, to the Environmental Learning Center parking lot.
First interesting thing was seeing Nick Komar and a pass-by biker extracting a
fish
David Wade was nice enough to let me know about his Worm-eating Warbler at
McMurry NA in Fort Collins this morning. I got over there and spent most of
the afternoon multi-tasking: coincidentally trying for birds and hypothermia.
I failed to see the Worm-eating, but stuck around after other
I birded the Poudre River today from the Sharp Point business park parking lot
south thru Prospect Ponds Natural Area to the parking lot at the Northern
Colorado Environmental Center (ELC) late this afternoon.
Not a lot of birds, but some nice individuals.
Chestnut-sided Warbler (apparently an
In agreement with David Wade's report of Bobolinks in the fields west of the
Reservoir Ridge Natural Area parking lot on Overland Trail in western Fort
Collins today, four of us saw at least two males, maybe three. At least two
males were seen in the alfalfa fields north of the fenceline that
Brian et al,
I just came from the Eaton Cemetery and did NOT see the Lucy's Warbler. I am
hesitant to say it is absolutely gone, because it is very easy to miss, but I
think based on checking everywhere people had seen it, and the amount of
turnover in individual birds, it's highly likely the
After spending from about 9am to 2:30pm refinding, losing, refinding, losing
the Lucy's Warbler at Eaton Cemetery today, I went east on CR74 thru Galeton
and Cornish Ponds to 392 and then north to Briggsdale. Nothing notable at
Cornish Ponds except for Black-necked Stilts and Wilson's
The LUCY'S WARBLER, first seen this cold, windy, sideways-snow-for-a-time
morning about 10:00am was seen by four other people (Cole Wild, Rachel Hopper,
Joe Mammoser, and Josh Bruening) in mid-afternoon.
There are four entrances into Eaton Cemetery off of CR39 (about 1/2 mile south
of CR74
After Eaton Cemetery, I was too cold and wet to find my way to Fort Collins and
ended up at Crow Valley. That place is even colder and wetter. In fact, it is
flooded. Water comes up to the Main Picnic Shelter on the south. Some picnic
tables with water beneath them. The south road that
Mark et al,
I guess I would agree with the suggestion by Glenn and maybe others that this
bird appears to have some Bay-breasted in it. Definitely has Chestnut-sided in
it, too. Very interesting bird. Thanks for sharing.
Dave
Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 00:12:15 +
From: markcha...@comcast.net
I haven't been going to Grandview Cemetery much this year but when I do, the
list has been entered into eBird. Don't fall over. Highlights of the last few
days are:
Broad-winged Hawk (at least two different individuals, one seen two days ago
was definitely an adult, the one today looked
As others have posted, the story so far at Crow Valley is minimal landbird
migration and lots of water in the creek.
I managed to muster 36 species today with the highlights being:
Sora (heard in the wetland off to the north of the Group Area in the nw corner)
Eastern Screech-Owl (one
While Georg Wilhelm Steller is still on our minds after reading the excellent
tribute to him by Bob Righter in the current issue of Colorado Birds, I
thought this note from the Denver Zoo might be of interest to Colorado birders.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
Lynn, Chris, et al,
The incident described to Chris by Lynn does not sound like simple predation to
me. The crow did not make off with the grackle and didn't even kill it, at
least not immediately. My guess would be that this crow has some experience or
instinct about grackles being egg
FINALLY, after at least 8 hours of searching over 3 days time, I laid eyes on
the White-eyed Vireo at Lamar Community College Woods this morning. I saw it a
total of maybe two minutes around noon, then lost it in the blowing leaves and
never saw it again. The location was due east of the
I have been down here since 4/18. The weather has been odd, to say the least,
as is the tree leafing-out/insect situation. It was been fairly cool this
whole visit, with the highest temps being just barely over 80. That's frigid
for Lamar. It has been blustery at times but not too bad. The
Continuing the thread started by Doug, and continued by David and Joey, I went
out east of Fort Collins hoping to see how birds were coping with this weather.
Not enough sticking snow to really force small birds already here out onto
roads or odd situations like parking lots, as has been the
First stop was the pasture/pdog town e of Weld CR57 just s of SR14 - NO
Mountain Plover, the target of the day.
I got to Crow Valley Campground by mid-morning and checked Briggsdale after
that. Highlights were:
Water in Crow Creek
Merlin (female, which actually vocalized at one point while
I went up to North Park yesterday to see if I could find (an old birding term,
see glossary of any birding book published before eBird start-up) a Greater
Sage-Grouse without aid of intel, gps coordinates, map flags, knowledge of
leks, or setting my alarm for 3am.
At about 1pm I was very
Highlights of a big loop around these two contiguous Natural Areas east of the
Poudre River south of Prospect in Fort Collins (Larimer) today (3/18/15):
Merlin (1 prairie race female)
Cinnamon Teal (3m, 2f)
Green-winged Teal (13)
Virginia Rail (heard at least 5)
Marsh Wren (heard at least 2)
Hi,
Paul Opler sent me the following message and asked me to share it with COBIRDS:
[For the last four days at least there has been an increasingly
large number of gulls roosting for the night on the south end of Boyd
Lake, then spending the day feeding in weedy alfalfa fields just south
of
David Pettee of Newton, MASS, David Wade of Fort Collins, and I (yet another
David) heard one Boreal Owl at about milepost 64 on SR14 about a half mile on
the Jackson County side of Cameron Pass on the night of 3/15 at about 9:30pm.
The bird was south of the highway, sort of at the nw flank of
Seen today during Front Range Community College field trips to Windsor Lake (in
the town of Windsor, accessed off 7th on Cedar):
Glaucous Gull (1 subadult, not sure which cycle but probably 2nd or 3rd, the
champion kleptoparasite, mostly victimizing goldeneye))
Thayer's Gull (at least 2
Hi,
I have spent considerable time solving this issue of, What are the early
bluebirds that hover over the prairie getting?. The specific site I observed
most was the Pawnee Grasslands just west of Crow Valley. My conclusion is that
these are some type of tiger moth (Family Noctuidae,
On this day of melt and appearing gizzard shad (both live and dead, in open
areas and in the ice), I visited Windsor Lake on the east side of downtown
Windsor (Weld) and had the following highlights:
Bald Eagle (2 adults)
Red-breasted Merganser (several)
Thayer's Gull (1 juv.)
California Gull
Neglected sending this to the whole group, as intended.
Dave
From: daleather...@msn.com
To: quetza...@comcast.net
Subject: RE: [cobirds] Boulder surprising hawk kill
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 10:28:38 -0700
David, Nick, Gary, et al,
Interesting observations, all. I would throw in seeing a
Three Short-eared Owls were first seen on Sunday (2/22) along Buckeye Road
(Larimer CR82) near the Rawhide Power Plant. These owls were first seen about
4:30pm perched on roadside poles about 3.9 miles west of I-25 (Exit 288).
After 5pm they began to hunt south of the road in tall, tan grass
As reported by Ken Pals, the owls were present along Buckeye Road (CR82) this
evening in the same general area as yesterday, although not all that visible
until it was nearly dark. The poles they flew up to at around 5:50pm are on
the south side of the road near the 1599 mailbox (which is 4.2
I took a drive up to Rockport (Weld) along US85, went a short ways east on
CR128 to check for rosy-finches along some of the rocky outcrops, then went
west thru Carr over to the overlook at Hamilton Reservoir (which was closed).
As I drove west on Buckeye Road (= 82Rd), at about 4:30pm I
At the Department of Parks and Wildlife Moose Visitor Center on the west side
of Cameron Pass along SR14 at Gould (Jackson), the following appeared at the
feeders behind the VC yesterday during fairly cold temps and light falling snow:
Pine Grosbeak (9)
Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (about 75)
Still very dry in southeastern CO since I arrived last Wednesday, 2/4.
Tumbleweeds fill many of the irrigation ditches, are piled up against tree
rows, and columns of smoke rise on calm days as farmers/ranchers try to dig out
and burn piles of this exotic vegetation curse (Russian thistle and
Leon Bright et al,
Here is a response I got from CSU entomologist extraordinaire, Dr. Whitney
Cranshaw, re your question about why honey bees seem to be attracted to cracked
corn at your Pueblo bird feeding station:
[Honey bees
visiting bird feeders in late winter or very early spring, before
The pair of Barrow's Goldeneyes first reported earlier this year by Josh
Bruening at Watson Lake, between Laporte and Bellvue (Larimer) was still
present this morning at 11am. Dave Steingraeber and I also saw one Golden
Eagle fly across the lake (scaring all the geese) and over the escarpment
David, John, Glenn, and All,
This is a nice thread about a subject I don't recall ever coming up on COBIRDS.
I was with Janeal and Jane today at Denver West trying for the Pine Warbler
(which we did NOT find, despite finding the bushtits, the juncos, the
nuthatches, the chickadees, and many
Birders and photographers and others with binoculars and cameras,
In case it needs to be said, and apparently it does, IT IS NOT OK TO WALK DOWN
THE CREEK EDGE TRYING TO FIND AND FLUSH THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK!!
This constitutes clueless, and/or rude, unethical behavior and is the kind
Hamilton Reservoir associated with the Rawhide Power Plant has some of the only
open water in the Fort Collins area. It is reached by exiting I-25 at the
Buckeye Exit north of Wellington and going west for a few miles, turning toward
the dam and immediately taking the road to the observation
I birded southeastern CO from January 3rd thru the 9th, leaving this morning
the 10th.
SUMMARY OF VIRTUAL LAMAR CBC CIRCLE (all Prowers except for sliver of Bent at
town of Prowers/Ark River on Bent CR34.5):
LCC
Only got down there once and saw 2 male and 1 female Northern Cardinals; 1
Janeal Thompson and I made a big loop east of Lamar on Highway 50, south to the
town of Two Buttes, north to Two Buttes Res, and back to Lamar today.
Highlights:
Loggerhead Shrike (1a) on Prowers CR19 several miles south of Carlton.
Lapland Longspur (few) in with Horned Larks along Prowers CRs
Pam,
Which raptor or raptors would take advantage of the new entree on the menu has
been a question that's intrigued me since they first started showing up 20+
years ago. I have kept my eyes open and also posed the question to COBIRDS a
long time ago. The co-winners seem to be Cooper's Hawk
I tried to do some research and photo work for a future The Hungry Bird
column today at Higbee Canyon south of LaJunta. Taking a cue from David
Dowell's recent post from this area, I was trying to locate Ladder-backed
Woodpeckers in cholla cactus. I did not. However, I did see:
Cassin's
With Janeal Thompson, made a big loop down from Lamar to Springfield w to
Carizzo Canyon w to Cottonwood Canyon nw to Kim w about 10 miles on US160 and
north on CR179 thru Villegreen ne to SR119 n to LaJunta, e to Lamar. Beautiful
day for the date or any date. 60 degree high, very little
Willow Creek Park (north end)
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (adult male, different from yesterday's juv) -
entering the northwest corner of the park from Parkview Ave., go in the drive,
staying left to the circle drive. On the east side of the circle is a small
stone building with a rust-colored
Willow Creek Park
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (juv) northwest corner, favoring a pine due east of
the yard between 1306 and 1305A 1st Street (this is the southernmost pine along
the northwest edge of the park)
Red-bellied Woodpecker (1m) working on an elm very near the sapsucker location
At the pond e of Sharp Point just south of Prospect in Fort Collins (Larimer)
at 3:30 were three Greater White-fronted Geese (2a, 1i) and the Snow X Cackling
Goose hybrid plus a few thousand White-cheeked Geese, plus assorted common
dabbling ducks (and a few American Coots). I checked the
Took a walk along the Poudre River today, both north and south of Prospect
about a mile in each direction. The river corridor still looks and feels
somewhat scoured and raw from last spring's flooding but it is getting better.
Highlights included:
Thousands (7?) of geese (mostly Lesser
A check of Hamilton Reservoir off Buckeye Road by the Rawhide Power Plant in
northern Larimer County showed at least 6 Tundra Swans continuing in the
southwest corner, as viewed from the Observation Area above the south shore.
When I first arrived, two were much closer than usual about half
A check of Douglas Res in Larimer County north of Fort Collins today showed the
White-winged Scoter, Black Scoter, and Long-tailed Duck present over much of
the past week have apparently moved on. A few Bonaparte's Gulls and fair
number of Common Goldeneyes persist at the extreme north end.
I attempted birding some lakes today, hand-holding my scope against the car
window without a tripod (long story involving a strong gust of wind and the dam
rocks at Douglas Reservoir that has a $3.75 happy ending, thanks to the
invention of polycarbonate tube materials and recent arrival of the
I went up to Annex #8 Reservoir today, which is just north of the Fort Collins
Country Club in the southwest corner of the intersection of CRs 13 and 56.
Andy Bankert reported a sleeping, unidentified loon on Windsor #8 (res across
56 from Annex #8 day before yesterday) and a Pacific Loon from
After checking on the still-present rarities (wwscoter, blkscoter, and
longtailedduck) at Douglas Reservoir (Larimer), Georgia Doyle and I went up to
Hamilton Reservoir associated with the Rawhide Power Plant north of Buckeye
Road. There we saw a group of three Tundra Swans swimming in the
I got a call this morning from Rachel Hopper who had located an adult female
White-winged Scoter on Douglas Reservoir in northern Larimer County (nw of the
intersection of 60 and 15RDs). Once there I located the scoter, and a female
Long-tailed Duck, which had apparently been seen late last
I photographed a harrier today along the road that goes around the southwestern
corner of Douglas Reservoir today. I photographed it just because it allowed
me to, a unusual thing in my experience with perched harriers. Upon
examination of the photos, it appears to be a melanistic or
There is a male Wood Duck in the bigger of two open water areas at Sheldon
Lake, City Park, Fort Collins as of about noon today. Let's hope it can stick
around for a month. We have sometimes missed this species in recent years
during the FC CBC.
In Grandview Cemetery, near the center, was a
I checked some water bodies in northern Larimer and encountered the same fog
and difficult viewing conditions everyone else has been having.
Hamilton Reservoir attached to the Rawhide Power Plant just north of the
Buckeye Road
All three mergansers
Eared Grebes (few)
Bald Eagle (1 adult)
Things are very dry here, per usual. Highlights birding within 5 miles of
downtown Lamar on Tuesday, 10/28:
Riverside Cemetery (off Maple Street e of Main):
Field Sparrow (2, along edge of alfalfa field north of cemetery)
Savannah Sparrow (10, ditto)
Vesper Sparrow (2, ditto)
Lincoln's Sparrow
Highlights at Hasty/Lake Hasty/John Martin Res yesterday, 10/29:
Sandhill Cranes (we estimated 11,000!! flew over, with this probably being a
woefully low count of what was within sight in all directions, one of the
events that makes birding the eastern plains of Colorado a joy at this time of
Just shy of 31 years ago, Fort Collins experienced a winter invasion of Pine
Grosbeaks (January 1984). I had not seen one again down in town until today.
The bird, a russet indiviudal first located by call, was just west of Fort
Collins' Grandview Cemetery entrance (Section F) in a couple
I received a second-hand report of a Cape May Warbler being seen and heard
singing on the Oval at CSU, Fort Collins yesterday 16October. I do not know
the person who reported it but do know we had one at Grandview Cemetery last
year for about a week centered on 8October. If someone searches
Steve et al,
You always seem to shake a few apples from the trees, even when the farmers and
calendar told us they've been picked over.
Beating a dead horse, re the Palm Warbler at Eaton, I would wager it was inside
the spruce seeking out hackberry psyllid adults moving from the myriad
Very quiet today at Crow Valley Campground near Briggsdale (Weld) but many
changes since last week and always beautiful this time of year (except for the
fracking truck traffic noise). Wonder when the intersection at Highway 14 and
CR77 will warrant a signal light?
Highlights:
FOS Sandhill
All,
This is a reply to Wayne and Joe that I co-addressed to COBIRDS but that
apparently didn't go out.
Dave Leatherman
From: daleather...@msn.com
To: jroll...@gmail.com
Subject: RE: [cobirds] Re: Re: condors in CO were NOT countable
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 15:55:32 -0600
Wayne, Joe, et al,
I
Maybe it would be more appropriate for a spokesperson from the Colorado RC to
be saying this, but.
I appreciate the sleuthing done by several people to answer the question posed
as to when California Condors visited Colorado's Grand Mesa. It was August
1998 when 3 birds wandered
As I understand the recent changes to the ABA listing rules that Ira brings up,
this may influence the CO List in regards to California Condor. Does anyone
remember when the Grand Canyon condors visited the Grand Mesa of Colorado? A
good source informed me the condors introduced back to
Here's a report from yesterday. Crow Valley was pretty quiet (11am-3pm) in
terms of both campers and birds. But it is always interesting.
Best birds were probably two White-throated Sparrows in the thicket south of
the Main Picnic Shelter. A taiga Merlin buzzed thru the Group Area in early
Norma's Grove west of Weld CR57 on Weld CR100 was pretty quiet but did have a
Cassin's Kingbird.
At the intersection of Murphy's Pasture Road (GR96) and CR69 is a windmill with
a cattle tank full of water. This has always been a bird-attracting area and a
great place to study sparrows. In
Nina Routh, Mike Serruto, and I birded Crow Valley Campground today from about
9am-2pm. Hundreds of scouts were camped in the elm grove n of the Main Picnic
Shelter. They were hauling logs out of the south fenceline area (doing
conservation work according to the adult leaders involved) and
the average height
of insects feeding/resting in vegetation. In follows that birds needing to eat
would stop flying, ground themselves, and when grounded, be lower, finding
whatever they could find, and, therefore, more detectible by birders.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
David Leatherman
Georgia Doyle and I birded Crow Valley Campground this morning. It was not
super birdy but we did have a few nice things:
Gray Flycatcher (1) in the dry creekbed s of the Main Picnic Shelter
Hammond's Flycatcher (1, possibly 2) in the dry creekbed south and sw of the
Main Picnic Shelter
Lots of migrant/winter influx activity today at Grandview Cemetery in Fort
Collins (Larimer).
Highlights included:
Red Crossbill (at least 30 flying in small flocks this way and that, mostly in
spruce, sometimes in Douglas-fir, occasionally in American Elm (I think the
latter is either a site
I neglected to mention that yesterday on my return from Crow Valley I stopped
at Crom Lake (Weld CR31 just south of 90Road (= just west of the town of
Pierce)). On the west side of the road (east side essentially all dried up)
was a nice group of about 20 Stilt Sandpipers, one Baird's
It was fairly slow at Crow Valley Campground (Weld) this afternoon but I did
run into the following birds of modest note:
Dusky Flycatcher (2)
American Redstart (1f)
Cordilleran Flycatcher (1)
Warbling Vireo (1) saw it catch and eat a green lacewing, plus a good-sized
unidentified caterpillar
Several people, including Jon Dunn, Bill Kaempfer, Sean Walters, and Ted Floyd,
searched in vain for the jaeger reported shortly after 11am this morning at
Timnath Reservoir (Larimer) by Gary Lefko. Apparently the jaeger, as jaegers
often seem to do, has moved on from Timnath Reservoir. It
Scott, David, et al,
Re crossbills at lower elevations, and cone crops in general, I would say the
following:
Conifers produce cone crops at fairly irregular intervals, with what nursery
people refer to as bumper crops occurring only every 3-5 years for most
species of coniferous tree (in
Gary,
The only thing I would add to what has already been said is that of the
resident passerines, perhaps only crossbills are more hidden pea trick from
year to year than corvids. I think the common denominator here is a heavy
reliance on conifer seeds. Since most conifers only have a
The Eastern Wood-Pewee first reported by Joe Mammoser along the Poudre River
north of Prospect is still present. This morning it started singing on a
regular basis about 8:20am west of the bike trail on the west side of the river
in a lush tall cottonwood grove west of the Cattail Chorus sign
There is a phenomenon on-going involving evening primrose (a white-flowered
species of Oencantha), the white-lined sphinx moth (Hylea lineata), and birds.
Caterpillars of the moth are gorging on the abundant plant, which, in response
to much-needed rains, blanketed the northern prairies of
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