Colorado, Part 1: Five New Birds and a New Nemesis Bird
After several years of wanting to visit Colorado, my wife and I finally made it out to the Midwest. My cousin moved out there over a decade ago and visiting him and his wife had always been a reason to go. We saw them last November when they were back in New Jersey and discussed when would be a good to time visit. My only requests were to visit when the chance of being snowbound was nil and when could we see most of the resident wildlife. Early to mid-July turned out to be the best window of opportunity. To avoid yet another year of could have/should have, we booked our flights earlier this year and flew out for four days this past weekend.
Some of the scenic beauty of Colorado. © S. Weiss
Our destination was the beautiful, unincorporated town of Evergreen, just about an hour west of Denver. As I usually do when traveling to a new destination, I researched and made a wish list of things I wanted to see. I have seen a good number of western bird species on my previous trips to California, Arizona and Washington, so my new bird list for Colorado was not extensive. Excluding all the grouses since I didn’t think I would be in their habitat, I came up with about a dozen birds I would like to see. By the end of my first day, I had picked up four new life birds: violet-green swallow, black-billed magpie, broad-tailed hummingbird and pygmy nuthatch. These four birds were actually quite common in the area. They were easily spotted just by sitting out on my cousin’s deck.
Virtually all day you could hear the buzzing sounds of broad-tailed hummers in the neighborhood as they visited flower beds and fought over hummingbird feeders. A recently arrived rufous hummingbird had a tough time trying to maintain ownership of my cousin’s feeders. This was my 23rd hummingbird species. Pygmy nuthatches would come in waves, crawling around the trunks and branches of the surrounding Rocky Mountains ponderosa pines and quaking aspens. I was able to see as many as five at one time and still hear others. I now have seen all four of North America’s nuthatches.
Left, rufous hummingbird. Right, broad-tailed hummingbird. © S. Weiss
Violet-green swallows were the only swallows I noticed, and they patrolled most of the open spaces in the area. The magpies were like our blue jays. They were loud and boisterous, announcing their approach to the area. I had as many as 15 fly overhead one morning, and a group of at least five visit the water feature on my hosts’ deck.
Left, trio of black-billed magpies searching for food. Right, black-billed magpies gleaning the back of an elk. © S. Weiss
I picked up my fifth new life bird while sitting out on the deck one early evening. I heard an unfamiliar call coming from one of the nearby pines. Looking for the source, I caught a quick view of a Hammond’s flycatcher as it flew out of the tree. Other interesting birds that I saw were Brewer’s blackbirds, pine siskins, western and mountain bluebirds, lesser goldfinches, dark-eyed junco (gray-headed) and plenty of white-crowned sparrows. Amazingly though, I did not see a single raptor the entire time I was in Colorado. Despite the weather conditions every day being sunny and warmer than usual, I did not see a single hawk, eagle or vulture circling overhead.
The lack of birds of prey did not bother me, but missing my first American dipper did. On our first day out there, I mentioned the dipper to my cousin and was pleasantly shocked that this was one of his favorite birds. He is not really a birder, but an avid trout fisherman. He said he sees one nearly every time he goes trout fishing. He likes them because they eat the same aquatic insect larvae as do the trout. A dipper nearby lets him know that trout might also be in the area. The morning of our flight home he took me to his favorite trout stream, about an hour away. The habitat was perfect for spotting a dipper- a fast-moving stream with oxbows and plenty of exposed rocks and logs scattered in the middle of its flow and along its banks. We only had about 40 minutes to find one and, of course, came up empty.
The two times that I visited Arizona I also looked for one in appropriate habitat and with the same negative result. Now, after missing one yet again, even in a known location for them, the dipper has joined my short list of nemesis birds. The other, a green-tailed towhee, escaped me again and remains on that list.
I don’t know when I will see the towhee, but I have zeroed in on finding a dipper. I will get back out to Colorado again, and when I do, I will spend all day walking up and down that stream until I find one. If I’m really, really lucky I’ll flush out a towhee too.
Comments
Post a Comment