Failed Plans and their Rewards

Last Friday night was a bummer. With no work obligations and a free place to crash the plan was to head up to the mountains, get a couple of runs in at Arapahoe Basin before the crowds on the two open runs made the lift line unbearable, and then get back down the hill in time for costume prep. As I finished loading my gear into the truck; I grabbed my new boot - and bammo! The strap fell off. This was a brand new boot....Argh! I attempted to reattach, but the reason why it had fallen off became clear. The bolt was too short, and only the first turn of thread on it could reach the female side, leaving the connection dicey at best. I made a desperate call to the ski shop in Boulder to see if they could just supply me with two longer bolts and have them waiting if I raced up before closing, but a long hold time on the phone prevented that. So my plan was shot, my next morning was free, and I turned to the reports on COBirds to see what goodies were about. A Curve-billed Thrasher had been hanging around the feeders at the Red Rocks Trading Post, and seemed just right.


The little garden behind the Red Rocks Trading Post is a great spot for birding. Several feeders keep crowds of birds around, and its location at the base of the foothills seems to make it a good place for infrequent visitors to stop by, and a nice place for more common birds as well. I was able to relocate the reported Curve-billed Thrasher. Supposedly both a Golden-crowned and a White-throated Sparrow has been in the area as well, but they didn't appear while I was watching.


As I had not seen a Curve-billed Thrasher previously I had done a bit of reading on it before heading out, and while I don't have any of my guide books around to quote the description of its call I can say that, 'watery' or 'liquidy', were used. (Most likely it was 'watery' as 'liquidy' fails spell check and therefore wouldn't seem to get published much). Just before heading back I got to hear the bird call, and it was very impressive - 'watery' seemed fair. Having read the description before hand I knew that what I was hearing was the bird I had just seen - very cool.

The drawback of the trip was that the early shots I got of the bird were taken just as the sun was clearing some clouds - driving down I was treated to one of the most spectacular sunrises I have seen - and I was a bit overexposed when the bird popped out. I made a bit of an adjustment to compensate, but will just have to hope for another run-in with this species in the future for better results.



After a roundabout trip to Boulder, to fix the boot - (New gear failing before what was to have been my first ski day of the season is frustrating, but better to get it out of the way in October than before a big powder day mid-season! They even gave me a second bolt for the other boot as well.) - I swung back past Plaster Reservoir in Broomfield on the way home. The fall/winter ducks are returning in force, and the Gadwall above was happy to stay perched close to me, showing off that subtle-but-deep texture on its breast.

Moral of the day - rare birds and common birds are both good ways to get over the annoyance of failed equipment and plans, and the boots are ready, better than ever for the next chance to get up to the mountains.

2010 Count: 203
Lifetime: 246

Cool Down

After an early morning that featured two, three mile, down then up hikes I was ready for an afternoon cool down, somewhere that offered flat terrain. I decided to spend a couple of hours at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge.



This was a limited intensity birding hike for me. Doing anything on a windy expanse of plains at mid-day is a challenge. Even so, the refuge offers so much to see that even at during admittedly quiet birding hours I still knocked together a 27 species list. The gulls had descended on Lake Ladora, but a contingent were always airborne, riding the gusts and keeping the usually quiet plains fairly noisy.
My effort was rewarded by a few personal first-of-season sightings, including the Horned Lark below.


Against a windswept, grassy, background the horns of a lark can be difficult to pick out. For this bird my ID started in the field and was confirmed before I had zoomed in or cropped this image. Look for the three colors in the tail. The Horned Lark features a tail that has narrow white edges, and a brown central stripe, on otherwise black feathers. It is a good sign, and one that once recognised can be used at highway speeds as these flocks take flight from the roadside.

The Refuge always seems to have a group of Mule Deer somewhere in sight. On this visit I had to make a detour to avoid coming between a lone male and two youngsters who had left the shade of a copse where the rest of the herd was resting. Taking the roads that led the longer way around showed me this deer who did a couple of cuts between mom and the rest of the herd as I tried to remain as far away as possible.


Good thing they carry around their own pair of sun visors!

One positive from strong sunlight is that it can make some markings stand out.


The roufus and white patches on the male Gadwall are much more visible in this light than at dawn or dusk.

Finally, with the least quality is a Franklin's Gull in breeding plumage. This gull is similar in appearance to the Laughing Gull (non-breeding plumage), that I saw in Baltimore last fall. The easiest way to tell these two apart is that the Laughing Gull localizes to the Eastern U.S. seaboard, while the Franklin's Gull migrates north through the plains to Canada in the spring, and back south to Peru in the fall.


Hopefully I get a few more shots to improve the quality this spring.

2010 Count: 97
Lifetime: 210

Leftovers

On a great birding day like yesterday I usually return with a mind-boggling number of pictures. Some species get special attention, and the best of whatever I have taken of those get posted to help share what I have seen in the field. Then there are a great number that are simply saved away, either because they are poor even by my standards, or because they are of common species which have been getting a lot of play in recent posts. However, there was too much yesterday to just be represented by the Rusty Blackbird and American Dipper posts, so here is the best of the rest:

A well started, but incomplete, beaver tree.


If anyone has an idea why that cut pattern would appear I would appreciate an explanation. Those incomprehensible, yet always intriguing beavers - I didn't see them at all, but was amazed that there is an active pond and dam in such a developed area.

A Gadwall - subtle but deep patterns make this a duck whose colors you could lose yourself in for hours.

A Common Goldeneye was engaged in a courtship display. Sure to us it looks like the gargling mouthwash position, but to a female Common Goldeneye that is one 'wild and crazy guy"!

Here is another uncommon species in Colorado, but as shown in this space, one that can be found with some regularity. This is the more typical setting for seeing a Barrow's Goldeneye in Colorado - at a distance on a lake. The one hanging out on the South Platte in Denver over the winter spoiled me, and many others, with the continuous close-up views it offered.

Finally, as I was returning in the fading light I had a pair of Brown Creepers fly into the tree immediately ahead of me. I had to bump the ISO way up on my camera to deal with the low light, but at least that slowed this blur of a bird down a bit.

This last trip has me jumping for spring migration to heat up. As it will be my second, I am looking forward to seeing some familiar birds return, and hopefully being more prepared to spot new visitors as they move through out area. Good birding!

Colatteral Duckage

Female Hooded Merganser

Saturday I had a bit of daylight left as I was heading back up from the hospital in south Denver, so I swung by a hot spot that I had not visited previously, but that was teeming with avian variety in the midst of the city. That is the stretch of the South Platte River that runs between Evans and Florida, and borders a municipal golf course.

Male Hooded Merganser

It was late afternoon on a short day, so I parked on the west bank, and walked north in the direction of the current.

Male Ring-necked Duck

I had a target species in mind, one that had been reported and refound multiple times in this same stretch over the course of a week.

Male Gadwall

While I was scanning for the single target individual I was amazed at the diversity of waterfowl that I was seeing along the half-mile or so stretch of river.

Male Northern Shoveler

All of these species were on display, and were well lit by the low sun angle and a bit of filtering by the shoreline trees.

Male Green-winged Teal

I didn't see a single new species on my walk, but I have never had an opportunity to get quality looks at so many different birds in one session, and to walk away with quality photographs of the majority was a really nice bonus.

Male American Wigeon

Not a single one of these birds was my target, that one is coming up in a following post along with its more frequently seen relative.

Male Bufflehead

No, all these ducks, and mergansers were seen simply because I had the good 'mis'fortune to turn north from where I parked and not check the 2o yards south of my car to the bridge at Evans Ave. But that species, and its comparison with its more 'common' cousins will have to wait for all these fine looking individuals to enjoy their time in the sun.