Southern Arapahoe County to DIA Airport

January 11, 2019

Richard Stevens:

Yesterday's weather prediction was correct.  We woke up to snow covered ground and it continued to snow most of the day.

High temperature was 42 degrees at the airport.  Winds were 12-13 mph with gusts to 17 mph.

Two things I did not want to do today.  First, I did not want to count Red-winged Blackbirds along the First Creek Trail (Denver County).  Searching through 400+ Red-winged Blackbirds during two previous trips and missing the Rusty Blackbirds were enough.  Second, I did not want to drive on the snowy roads and in the traffic.

What to do, I parked at the 64th Avenue Light Rail parking area off Tower Road and took the Light Rail down to South Platte Park off Mineral Avenue (Arapahoe).

A 1.3-mile hike got me to the South Platte Park Reservoir.  Along the way, The Tundra Swan was observed just 10 feet offshore at the southern end of Eaglewatch Lake.

At South Platte Park Reservoir (Arapahoe side), the Black Scoter was directly west of the gazebo outside of the east side of the Lake.  At least two Greater Scaup were also on the Lake.

Another two Greater Scaup were on the South Platte River, north of C470 Bridge.  

Back at the Carson Visitor's Center, an American Dipper flew up river and landed under the Mineral Avenue Bridge.

The Harris's Sparrow was with a dozen American Tree Sparrows and four White-crowned Sparrows in the willows at the southwest corner of the building.

I hopped on the Light Rail and headed toward the 64th Avenue parking area.  With a couple of hours of daylight remaining and an all day Light Rail pass, I decided to ride out to the Airport.

The return trip was timed to pass by the Disposal Dump and outlying areas at sunset.  While I did not see any Short-eared Owls, a Ferruginous Hawk, Prairie Falcon and two Red-tailed Hawks were a nice consolation.

I missed Denver's terrible traffic and enjoyed quite a birding day on this snowy Friday!