Monday, October 27, 2008

Adventure in the Mountains

October 25, 2008

Richard Stevens:

PT Warring and I started up the Grand Mesa in early afternoon. The plan was to drive to the Powderhorn Ski Area while it was still light enough to see birds and then backtrack to the Visitor's Center after dark and search for owls.

We stopped at the Visitor's Center and quickly found a flock of Red Crossbills. While walking up the road to the east, Tom heard a White-winged Crossbill. Unfortunately we never did put our binoculars on the bird.

On the side road about a half mile east of the Visitor's Center, a Northern Goshawk flew slowly across the road and gave us great looks. It appeared to be a small adult male.

At the Lodge we found a flock of Pine Siskins and quite a few Mountain Chickadees. Not much else showed up and we moved on north along the main road.

At Powderhorn Ski Area we hiked the road behind the maintenance sheds. An American Three-toed Woodpecker worked the trees below the parking area.

After sunset, a Northern Pygmy-Owl answered my recordings. We never saw the owl; it was to the north of the maintenance shed and well back into the woods.

We stopped at about 7 pullovers as we drove back south along the main road. At the Campgrounds we did not hear any Boreal Owls but a Northern Saw-whet Owl called back. This was the third time that a Northern Saw-whet Owl has called for me in this area. It flew back and forth a couple of times across the main road (passed through our spotlight once).

The first pullover south of the campgrounds offered our first Boreal Owl on the evening. Again we never observed the bird but did hear it call for about 10 minutes.

Our second Boreal Owl of the night was at the third pullover (I believe there are GPS waypoints of the pullovers on the CoBus website). Again the owl did not come out of the woods and we left before disturbing it too much.

That was the end of our owl encounters for the night. It was well after 2:00am and we headed back to Denver.

PT purchased a home around Standley Lake and we decided to walk the south side of Standley before I took him to the airport (had to return to PA to get his wife and belongings).

Standley Lake was quite interesting in spite of winds measured steady at 14 mph and gusts to 30 mph. The large waves made observing and identifying birds quite a task.

A Common Loon still in alternate plumage was in the southeast corner of the lake. I wanted to try for a photo so PT and I walked around the inlet canal in order to get closer to the bird.

This decision turned out to be fortuitous. A very small brown bird with a short tail flew out of the short willows on the west side of the inlet canal. It briefly stopped to look around and gave us great looks at a Winter Wren! Eventually it flew across the canal and to the tall willows on the east side.

We were not able to relocate the wren by the time we hiked to the east side of the canal.

As we hiked back to the west side of Standley Lake a Pacific Loon was spotted. This bird flew back and forth across the lake more than 4 times during our stay.

Farther out was a third loon that was quite interesting. I rode the frantic waves and disappeared behind them more often than revealing itself to us. Both of us thought Red-throated Loon as a first thought. Unfortunately our looks were not long enough to confidently label the loon as such. We hoped another birder would come along later in the day and get better looks?

I also noticed a large white bird in the middle of the lake and near the eastern dam. It definitely was a swan, but which species?

When we arrived at the north side of Standley Lake the swan had swam from the dam to just north of the land spit at the western end. The bird was still quite far away and riding the high waves. Focusing with our scopes in the high winds and bobbing up and down swan did not help identifying the bird. We were 90 percent sure it was a Tundra Swan; but someone could prove us wrong.

Eventually I took PT to the airport and I went home for some sleep.

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