Yesterday, 17July, I led a field trip for Fort Collins Audubon to Grandview Cemetery at the west terminus of Mountain Avenue. This was set up in spring and we chose mid-July starting at 5pm mid-week to accommodate folks with jobs and to visit during what historically has been the peak of activity for second-brood Broad-tailed Hummingbird nests, and maybe view a Black-chinned Hummingbird nest based on 2018.
Well, this year, as you all know, has been a very different year in terms of the weather and everything else. To start with, first detections of hummingbirds were late. First male was heard in late March 2018, this year it was early May. By late May I had 5 nests located. I don't think any of these produced fledged young. Predation in both the egg and nestling stages occurred. Not sure "who done it" but suspect squirrels, maybe jays, maybe something else. Oddly males have been more evident this summer than usual. Because of how widely they zing around, it may only be 2, maybe 3, individual males but I have heard them every visit in June and July. I have detected very few females, no fledged young (which give a distinctive call note that sounds warblerish and which Nick Komar recorded for Xeno Canto a couple years ago).
So, leading up to yesterday's field trip, I had no active nests lined up to show folks. Yesterday morning I visited the cemetery, checked some places I normally don't, and was graced with one female who gently but intently checked me out 2 feet in front of my face as I stood under a pine tree, went this way, that way, up over here, down over there, continued in this game of aerial slight of hand for another minute, then quietly sat on a nest. As a field trip leader, I was relieved, and can report that everyone on the actual trip yesterday evening got to see the same performance. Maybe those males are finding mates and maybe the second brood activity will just be late this summer.
Also, of late, the local Red-tailed Hawks nesting in a spruce in the southeastern corner of Grandview produced two young. It was fun to watch these clueless youngsters investigate something new to them - the ground. They sat on headstones, flipped clumps of cut grass up in the air, disappeared into unmowed tall vegetation around certain headstones like bears investigating tents, sat fearlessly in sumacs less than 6 feet from me, made short, half-hearted Wright Brothers flights at terrified squirrels, enjoyed a Norway rat a parent brought them, etc. I was hoping this act would still be running for the field trip but it only lasted a few days and our group yesterday saw not one Red-tailed Hawk.
Young hawk emerging from grass, iris, bindweed jungle (left). Left bird wonders why sibling is fascinated with dead grass (right).
Chipping Sparrow adults are foraging for insects around the base of headstones, presumably to feed a brood in a nest somewhere in a spruce.
No nighthawks roosting in Grandview this summer.
No Black-chinned Hummingbird detections this summer.
Occasionally see Chimney Swifts overhead but only a few and the population downtown seemed very low this year. A good set of swifts occupied the airspace over Old Fort Collins HS two weeks ago.
Have not seen Red Crossbill "scouts" of late, following a few visits a couple weeks ago, one by solo bird, another by group of 10+. Spruce cone crop is what I would call "good to very good". Should be crossbill action this winter, hopefully.
Still a few Pine Siskins at Grandview, presumably involved in brood #2.
House Wrens are now prominent. Until there was a very successful pair a couple summers ago, this was a rare species at Grandview. Now I think it is the offspring of that first pair that can be heard mostly in the neighborhoods around the cemetery, as many as 5 singing birds per visit, plus chattering offspring of these birds.
Cooper's Hawk pair is nesting somewhere nearby and causes concern for starlings and robins when they visit the cemetery.
The one Great Horned Owl is mostly invisible but probably present up in a spruce crown after the nest failed following our last "bomb cyclone" in April.
Big honeysuckle berry crop this year, ditto for mulberry. Robins, starlings, waxwings, flickers happy.
Species count for both visits yesterday was 19, with three species being seen in AM not seen in the PM (Hairy Woodpecker, Mourning Dove, Cliff Swallow), three in PM not seen in AM (White-breasted Nuthatch, Ring-billed Gull, Cooper's Hawk).
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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