Thursday, March 8, 2012

Yet Another White-tailed Ptarmigan Search

March 3, 2012

Richard Stevens:

I lead a group back to Loveland Pass hopefully to find White-tailed Ptarmigan.

On the way, a brief stop at Star K Ranch Open Space found the Harris's Sparrow with many House Sparrows below the feeder hooks (no feeders, they take them down at night). We spread out some seed and continued our trip.

We could not find any Ptarmigan during a 3 hour search. Saturday and Sundays are not good days to search. Too many skiers go up there to avoid the lift ticket prices. My incentive of $20 and a lift from the bottom to the top of Loveland Pass did not prove effective today (sometimes it works, at least 4 times)!

We drove into Dillon for lunch. The Barrow's Goldeneyes continue at the Blue River Water Treatment Plant. After visiting a few feeders, we returned to Denver.

When I arrive home, Rebecca had received a call about an injured swan at the lake near the Mile High Church in Littleton. We had just enough light to get there before dark. The "swan" turned out to be plastic.

A woman had been watching it for several days and thinking it was injured. When called back on March 7, she said that it had sunk.

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