Mountain Forest Birds

Ruby-crowned Kinglet. This bird was an exciting highlight of our trip to the Red Feather Lakes district. This little fellow was showing off big time for his lucky lady. He showed her that he could out sing, and display, an entire group of humans.

I was a bit disappointed that my sharpest shots didn't coincide with his best perches, but even so he made for a great subject.

As we worked our way along the road, giving the kinglet his well earned space after the show we reached one of our targets, the American Three-toed Woodpecker.

The American Three-toeds have a snazzy yellow crest, but the identifying field mark to look for is the barring on their sides. That distinguishes them nicely from some of the other woodpeckers in the area with similar black and white coloring.

I was able to get this horrible photograph of a male Pine Grosbeak perching high in a barren tree-top. He looked great, and I will enjoy future attempts to get better shots of these colorful males.

Another good mountain species that I added on the day trip was the Cassin's Finch. The female below was enjoying one of the feeders at the Moose Visitor Center at State Forest State Park.

Finally, an early morning singing Red Crossbill greeted the group of photographer birders who were headed to Wyoming on Sunday morning. Featured in the keynote address, these Crossbills were confirmed as Type 2 by our leader, based on the Ponderosa habitat we were in.

Mountain habitat birds help to contribute to the great diversity of species that we have here in Colorado. I really enjoyed getting to know some of those that I saw last weekend, and hope that I will retain some of this for my own trips up in the future.

Estes Park / RMNP Trip Wrap-up

I hope that readers have enjoyed my thoughts and pictures following my trip up to the mountains around Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park. It is a beautiful country, and an area that has the ability to surprise on your first visit or 800th. The shot above was taken looking from Upper Beaver Meadows towards Long's Peak in the distance. The natural side of this trip was enough to make great memories, but it was even more enjoyable for me having all of my immediate family in Colorado together for the first time in years.

There are a few species that could vie for poster bird of the park. Everyone sees them when they visit, and because they are so common they fail to get quite the attention of their less likely cohabitants. So I start this wrap up with a couple of shots of Steller's Jays.

They, along with Black-billed Magpies, are everywhere in the park, and very likely to approach humans in search of a picnic dropping or free handout. I resisted shooting hundreds of pictures of Magpies on this trip, but the Steller's Jays still win me over.

Another of the reliable mountain species is the Red Crossbill.

I watched this pair as my nephew and I searched for perfect pine cones just before I left. The male, (above) has the namesake red coloring, the female, (below), is more of a greenish yellow.

Fun to get to see them up close rather than peering up at the top of a pine tree.

So for the trip I totalled 48 species, including 4 that I added to my life list. Those were; White-faced Ibis, Green-tailed Towhee, Red-naped Sapsucker and Dusky Grouse.

Tomorrow evening I am off for Ft. Collins and the Colorado Field Ornithologists Convention. This morning I received confirmation that I got my first choices for field trips on the first two days. Friday I will be going to Red-feather Lakes, and Saturday there is a trip to Phantom Canyon, a private holding that is normally restricted from public access. It will be my first convention, and really my first birding destination event of any kind. I am sure that I will be wow'd by all of the talent and experience of my fellow attendees, and hopefully I will pick up a few tricks along the way. Since tonight will be spent in a frantic effort to finish turning my laundry and getting repacked to leave directly from work tomorrow evening the next update will either be from the hotel or the first in a series of post convention posts. Should be fun!