Yesterday (5th of March) I drove up thru the 87,000 acre High Park Fire area thru Rist Canyon and along Stove Prairie Road to Poudre Canyon, then went up over Cameron Pass, visited the Moose Visitor Center near Gould and then on to Walden, down thru Arapahoe NWR to Rand, back to Gould via the "cutoff", and back down Poudre Canyon to Fort Collins.
Highlights:
Only 2 individual birds in the fire area (however, I didn't get out of the car to do any listening): 1 Dark-eyed Junco and 1 Steller's Jay. Hopefully the area will begin to recover this summer and the lack of obvious birds yesterday was just an anomaly of the lame survey technique. Lots of culvert enlargement and other roadwork underway in anticipation of potential erosion and flooding this spring, so I mostly just wanted to get out of there.
Not much in Poudre Canyon except some ravens, magpies, and possibly a Golden Eagle overhead, interested in an invisible roadkill (probably a deer) off the road. No Mountain Bluebirds observed.
Moose Visitor Center near town of Gould (Jackson):
Pine Grosbeak (at least 4)
Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (both normal and Hepburn's - at least 25 but no giant flocks, presumably because it was a nice day)
No Black or Brown-capped Rosy-Finches
No White-throated Sparrow
Gray Jay (at least 2)
tons of Mountain Chickadees and a few Black-caps
Red Squirrel pilfering the feeders (first one I've ever encountered that was wholly silent)
Steller's Jays (interestingly, the wariest of the species present, unwilling to come into the feeders when I was anywhere near)
*[No 3-toed Woodpeckers heard drumming off in the woods at the Moose VC (my guess, to answer Norm Lewis's question of a few days ago in a very general way, would be that as the Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) epidemic wanes in the Lodgepole Pine upper montane areas that the "action" these days in terms of bark beetle/borer prey, and thus woodpecker interest, is in upper montane areas of Engelmann Spruce with Spruce Beetle and also lower montane Ponderosa Pine areas with MPB).]
Walden:
Common Redpoll (at least 75 at the Fliniau feeders just w of the old school). I did not scrutinize the group long or hard, out of fear there might be a suspect Hoary that would give me thoughts of driving into the river on the way down the canyon.
Not much in the Arapaho Refuge (no Greater Sage-Grouse, no raptors, auto loop road closed - just p-dogs, coyotes, and blowing snow).
Poudre Canyon on the way down:
Nice group of Bighorn Sheep rams near Profile Rock (near Rustic) licking salt from yesterday's snow event.
Roadkilled Northern Pygmy-Owl (very fresh) collected for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science at mp98 (about mid-canyon, west end of Mountain Park CG).
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
Highlights:
Only 2 individual birds in the fire area (however, I didn't get out of the car to do any listening): 1 Dark-eyed Junco and 1 Steller's Jay. Hopefully the area will begin to recover this summer and the lack of obvious birds yesterday was just an anomaly of the lame survey technique. Lots of culvert enlargement and other roadwork underway in anticipation of potential erosion and flooding this spring, so I mostly just wanted to get out of there.
Not much in Poudre Canyon except some ravens, magpies, and possibly a Golden Eagle overhead, interested in an invisible roadkill (probably a deer) off the road. No Mountain Bluebirds observed.
Moose Visitor Center near town of Gould (Jackson):
Pine Grosbeak (at least 4)
Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (both normal and Hepburn's - at least 25 but no giant flocks, presumably because it was a nice day)
No Black or Brown-capped Rosy-Finches
No White-throated Sparrow
Gray Jay (at least 2)
tons of Mountain Chickadees and a few Black-caps
Red Squirrel pilfering the feeders (first one I've ever encountered that was wholly silent)
Steller's Jays (interestingly, the wariest of the species present, unwilling to come into the feeders when I was anywhere near)
*[No 3-toed Woodpeckers heard drumming off in the woods at the Moose VC (my guess, to answer Norm Lewis's question of a few days ago in a very general way, would be that as the Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) epidemic wanes in the Lodgepole Pine upper montane areas that the "action" these days in terms of bark beetle/borer prey, and thus woodpecker interest, is in upper montane areas of Engelmann Spruce with Spruce Beetle and also lower montane Ponderosa Pine areas with MPB).]
Walden:
Common Redpoll (at least 75 at the Fliniau feeders just w of the old school). I did not scrutinize the group long or hard, out of fear there might be a suspect Hoary that would give me thoughts of driving into the river on the way down the canyon.
Not much in the Arapaho Refuge (no Greater Sage-Grouse, no raptors, auto loop road closed - just p-dogs, coyotes, and blowing snow).
Poudre Canyon on the way down:
Nice group of Bighorn Sheep rams near Profile Rock (near Rustic) licking salt from yesterday's snow event.
Roadkilled Northern Pygmy-Owl (very fresh) collected for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science at mp98 (about mid-canyon, west end of Mountain Park CG).
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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