November 4, 2007
We received a report of a Northern Pygmy-Owl at Mt. Falcon Park (Margo and I were up there Thursday looking; without success). John Tiernan and I drove up but could not find any owls at sunrise. We did have 3 species of nuthatches, 2 Townsend's Solitaires, and a flock of 9 Mountain Bluebirds. The consolation prize was relocating a Dusky Grouse (30 yards east of the old castle and 25 yards south of the main path).
After dropping John off at DIA, I drove back to Cherry Creek Reservoir. It was anther beautiful afternoon. Winds were calm and temperatures near 60 degrees.
I arrived with only an hour of daylight left (messed up with the time change), scoped the reservoir for an hour and had found no loons. Then the Red-throated Loon flew in from the east to below the dam. I was able to show the loon to two other birders. While we watched the Red-throated Loon, the adult Bonaparte's Gull flew almost over us several times.
The Red-necked Grebe was not found, but not much time was used searching for it. Scoping the raft of Western Grebes (in the center of the lake) did not find it.
Many boats and jet skiers harassed the birds. They moved around much and made identifying them difficult. The Red-throated Loon had to fly out of the way of traffic at least 3 times in the 15 minutes we watched it.
We received a report of a Northern Pygmy-Owl at Mt. Falcon Park (Margo and I were up there Thursday looking; without success). John Tiernan and I drove up but could not find any owls at sunrise. We did have 3 species of nuthatches, 2 Townsend's Solitaires, and a flock of 9 Mountain Bluebirds. The consolation prize was relocating a Dusky Grouse (30 yards east of the old castle and 25 yards south of the main path).
After dropping John off at DIA, I drove back to Cherry Creek Reservoir. It was anther beautiful afternoon. Winds were calm and temperatures near 60 degrees.
I arrived with only an hour of daylight left (messed up with the time change), scoped the reservoir for an hour and had found no loons. Then the Red-throated Loon flew in from the east to below the dam. I was able to show the loon to two other birders. While we watched the Red-throated Loon, the adult Bonaparte's Gull flew almost over us several times.
The Red-necked Grebe was not found, but not much time was used searching for it. Scoping the raft of Western Grebes (in the center of the lake) did not find it.
Many boats and jet skiers harassed the birds. They moved around much and made identifying them difficult. The Red-throated Loon had to fly out of the way of traffic at least 3 times in the 15 minutes we watched it.
No comments:
Post a Comment