Friday, May 30, 2008

Search for Foothill Birds

May 30, 2008

Richard Stevens:

Five of us traveled up to Guanella Pass (Clear Creek County) by way of I70, then dropped down to Grant (Hwy 285) and back to Denver. What a beautiful day up there today! We left Denver before sunrise in hopes of finding an owl or two (optimistic, weren't we) above Georgetown; that we did not do.

We were quite lucky and found 2 White-tailed Ptarmigan by scoping the hillside to the south-southeast of the upper parking area. Our scopes were set up about 50 yards south of same parking area and we found the birds in less than 20 minutes.

Afterwards we stopped briefly at Pine Valley Ranch Park (Jefferson). A male American Three-toed Woodpecker was found along the Strawberry Jack Trail east of the Buck Gulch Trail. This bird or similar has been seen or heard on 3 or 4 occasions in the past 2 months. It was southeast of where Strawberry Jack Trail turns from eastward to north and is a series of switchbacks. We did not continue to the top where several additional American Three-toed Woodpeckers have been found on several occasions this spring-summer.

At Chatfield Reservoir (Jefferson/Douglas) we split up. Jack & I were dropped off at the Discovery Pavilion area and walked the west side of the S. Platte River up to Kingfisher Bridge. Meanwhile, Bryan, Peter, and Andrew hiked the Plum Creek Delta area.

The major push of migration may be over, but we thought a few stragglers could be picked up. Neither group found any uncommon birds.

Jack and I did see two American Redstarts (which may nest in the area). An adult male was south of the trail that runs west from the Pavilion to the Platte River. A second American Redstart was in the tall cottonwoods about 200 yards north of the same trail.

Bryan's group found a Northern Waterthrush along Plum Creek at about 300 yards south (upstream) of the Plum Creek footbridge.

As a group we found many birds, just nothing uncommon. There are nesting Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, Western Wood-pewees, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, House Wrens, Yellow Warblers, Yellow-breasted Chats, Spotted Towhees, of course American Robins. Other birds found included 1 Least Flycatcher, several unidentified Empidonax species, a Cooper's Hawk, a Great Horned Owl, a Green-tailed Towhee, Gray Catbird, a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and a Lazuli Bunting.

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