Urling and I went on two drives the last four days which turned into Crossbill/Nuthatch trips. Saturday we explored some roads in Elbert County, north of Colo. 86; Comanche Creek, Ridge Road, CRds 150 & 122, and various connectors. Today we heeded Gregg Goodrich's post about crossbills on Colo. 67 & Rampart Range Road, SW of Sedalia.
Saturday, the patches of ponderosa pines had clumps of noisy birds. Red Crossbills came in close and we tried to pick out juveniles (we saw two at least) among the red and yellow ones. By sound I think I'd classify them as Type 2 birds. We saw nuthatches of all three species. All the juncos we saw were White-winged.
The Rampart Range Road area along Colo. 67 has lots of Douglas-firs mixed with the ponderosas. We heard several flocks of crossbills, saw none. All sounded like, we think, Type 5. Red-breasted Nuthatches abounded: we heard 3-8 everywhere we stopped.
At Indian Springs campground, a flock of 33 juncos included Pink-sided, Oregon (one), but mostly Gray-headed - so different from the Elbert juncos. What, we wonder, do juncos in ponderosa/DougFir eat? Especially when snow covers the ground, as it started to do when we left?
Saturday, the patches of ponderosa pines had clumps of noisy birds. Red Crossbills came in close and we tried to pick out juveniles (we saw two at least) among the red and yellow ones. By sound I think I'd classify them as Type 2 birds. We saw nuthatches of all three species. All the juncos we saw were White-winged.
The Rampart Range Road area along Colo. 67 has lots of Douglas-firs mixed with the ponderosas. We heard several flocks of crossbills, saw none. All sounded like, we think, Type 5. Red-breasted Nuthatches abounded: we heard 3-8 everywhere we stopped.
At Indian Springs campground, a flock of 33 juncos included Pink-sided, Oregon (one), but mostly Gray-headed - so different from the Elbert juncos. What, we wonder, do juncos in ponderosa/DougFir eat? Especially when snow covers the ground, as it started to do when we left?
Hugh Kingery
Franktown, CO
-- Franktown, CO
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