Yes-- the people part of this blog. I've met some interesting ones for sure. Birding has been my in to conversation on walks, my invitation to others to check in. When you have a pair of binoculars around your neck, people know. So other birders say hello with a "seen anything interesting today?" and there begins the conversation.
At Harriman I met a short middle-aged lady-- has a few more years than me-- that knows the birds of that one lake well, but birds nowhere else. Residing nearby, that was here one walking and birding spot. Good enough! There's plenty there to see, including all the waterfowl, Cormorants and Hawks, Great Horneds, the occasional Bald. Huge flocks of redwing blackbirds (at times), a nesting pair of Western Kingbirds on the northern shore in the cottonwoods, occasional waders, plenty of swallows, meadowlarks off the northern shore, and all the songbird migrants that pass through, including the rare-to-the-area Northern Parula...
I'd just noticed the song associated with this little guy when i was exploring the same copse of cottonwoods I've mentioned elsewhere in this blog-- the song was definitely one I didn't know. Then suddenly I was joined by two guys, one right away asking, "Did you see it yet?"
"See what?" Turns out someone else had just posted the siting, and these guys were there looking for the same little dude I was listening to. We found him an all had a good look. The one birder thanking the other over and over for letting him know. I moved on, on my usual clockwise track...
Sunday, October 27, 2019
october: Townsend's Solitaires on Falcon, late chicks at Harriman
alright, been a minute here...
hunkered down with a storm coming in, sunday morning early. got the feeder back up after a prolonged summer and am starting to see some juncos again. year come full circle, almost.
yesterday i was back up Falcon in the morning. Snow and mud left, but day warming. Still a few Townsend's Solitaires hanging in-- two or three on the backside where the trail goes into the shade and the evergreens are healthier. Then again one singing in the midday from the dead elm on the edge of my property. I was chatting with Aliza but had to interrupt to check him out...
A week ago I hiked the same trail with my brother (Falcon) and the hillside was full of these solitaires-- more than I've seen in one place at one time for sure. Just checked the map though and it looks like they might stick around during the winter. Though I remember just catching a solitary one mid-winter last year under the bridge down near town. We'll see...
Harriman-- one of the reservoirs that's about three miles and a tad south of here. I was watching a pair of Great Horned chicks that hatched super-late there. The first nest was destroyed by our winter/spring "snow cyclone"-- a new term/phenomenon here on the front range, a new phenomenon within our era of changing/morphing climate.
Undeterred, the parents built a second nest. This one halfway down, walking west, along the southern shore of the length. Just where there's a nice wooded area-- a want to say copse, though I don't hear that used much (ever) on the Front Range. The new set of eggs laid was thus about two months behind schedule. Another birder I ran into on my perambulations there related that half here ornithologist friends thought this second round of chicks wouldn't make it-- just too late a start, and too much competition with other raptors.
At the time of this conversation the chicks were already big-- half grown. This was probably in July. I figured since they had several months of summer yet maybe they had a good shot at it yet. But the larger of the two-- the sister, perhaps-- was often on a log on the ground in those woods when I went looking for them. Strange to be so exposed. Seemed she had an issue with her wing. She kept an eye on me, though, and when I venture too close once was able to fly up into a tree.
Her skinnier brother was always nearby. Clearly they were still hunkered down in this copse, not ranging very far at all. Another birder opined that they were still being fed by the parents, but at this point I never saw the parents anymore myself. Chicks finally abandoned and left to their own devices?
I dropped by rabbit roadkill for the injured one one day-- what the heck. She didn't touch it. Funny, I thought a coyote would have picked it up or something, but it was there rotting when I returned five days later. Magpies were picking at it though...
One day the grounded chick was there no longer. Three weeks later the sibling disappeared as well. So... maybe neither made it, or maybe the skinnier brother did. That was two months ago now, probably-- mid-August.
hunkered down with a storm coming in, sunday morning early. got the feeder back up after a prolonged summer and am starting to see some juncos again. year come full circle, almost.
yesterday i was back up Falcon in the morning. Snow and mud left, but day warming. Still a few Townsend's Solitaires hanging in-- two or three on the backside where the trail goes into the shade and the evergreens are healthier. Then again one singing in the midday from the dead elm on the edge of my property. I was chatting with Aliza but had to interrupt to check him out...
A week ago I hiked the same trail with my brother (Falcon) and the hillside was full of these solitaires-- more than I've seen in one place at one time for sure. Just checked the map though and it looks like they might stick around during the winter. Though I remember just catching a solitary one mid-winter last year under the bridge down near town. We'll see...
Harriman-- one of the reservoirs that's about three miles and a tad south of here. I was watching a pair of Great Horned chicks that hatched super-late there. The first nest was destroyed by our winter/spring "snow cyclone"-- a new term/phenomenon here on the front range, a new phenomenon within our era of changing/morphing climate.
Undeterred, the parents built a second nest. This one halfway down, walking west, along the southern shore of the length. Just where there's a nice wooded area-- a want to say copse, though I don't hear that used much (ever) on the Front Range. The new set of eggs laid was thus about two months behind schedule. Another birder I ran into on my perambulations there related that half here ornithologist friends thought this second round of chicks wouldn't make it-- just too late a start, and too much competition with other raptors.
At the time of this conversation the chicks were already big-- half grown. This was probably in July. I figured since they had several months of summer yet maybe they had a good shot at it yet. But the larger of the two-- the sister, perhaps-- was often on a log on the ground in those woods when I went looking for them. Strange to be so exposed. Seemed she had an issue with her wing. She kept an eye on me, though, and when I venture too close once was able to fly up into a tree.
Her skinnier brother was always nearby. Clearly they were still hunkered down in this copse, not ranging very far at all. Another birder opined that they were still being fed by the parents, but at this point I never saw the parents anymore myself. Chicks finally abandoned and left to their own devices?
I dropped by rabbit roadkill for the injured one one day-- what the heck. She didn't touch it. Funny, I thought a coyote would have picked it up or something, but it was there rotting when I returned five days later. Magpies were picking at it though...
One day the grounded chick was there no longer. Three weeks later the sibling disappeared as well. So... maybe neither made it, or maybe the skinnier brother did. That was two months ago now, probably-- mid-August.
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