[cobirds] Grandview Cemetery, Fort Collins (Larimer) on 10/1 and a spelling correction

Yesterday at Grandview Cemetery, west terminus of Mountain Avenue in Fort Collins, I had the following highlights/lowlights:

Cassin's Finch (1 female) First Of Year (FOY)

White-crowned Sparrow (1 imm Gambel's race)

Chipping Sparrow (at least 10, mixed juvenile and winter adult plumages)

Dark-eyed Junco (6, mixed pink-sided and Oregon races, First Of Season (FOS) for Oregon)

Cooper's Hawk (female)

Great Horned Owl (flew to a honeylocust over the ditch in late afternoon, think it was trying for crayfish, ignored fox squirrel running around right in plain sight under it burying Ohio buckeyes, ignored me, too, 20 yards away waiting for an action shot that never materialized)

                                                                                             

                                                        Owl staring intently at slowly flowing irrigation ditch for prey (probably crayfish).

Barn Swallows (getting late)

Brown Creeper (2 FOS, arriving for the winter)

Lesser Goldfinch (still present)

Hairy Woodpecker (did not see which race it was)

Pine Siskin (heard flyover)

Turkey Vulture (one heading south, one heading to Mountain Avenue roost e of cemetery)

Total of 31 species (counting an additional 4 species added at nearby Sheldon Lake in City Park)

In summary, still plenty of insects until we have a freeze.  As for birds, still a few summer species, a few winter species arriving, a few pass-thru migrants but no warblers, no thrushes, no flycatchers, no vireos (Cassin's Vireo WAS reported recently by Ed Raynor), no tanagers, no grosbeaks.

Fox Squirrels mostly getting beans from honeylocust pods and burying Ohio buckeyes.  Watched the individual, which dared (or was oblivious to) the Great Horned Owl, bury one buckeye in Section B fully 100 yards from the source tree in Section 11 (to do this it held a large buckeye in its mouth, crossed an irrigation ditch by going up an elm on one side of the ditch, out the elm branches, leaping across to the branch of a linden growing on the other side, down to the ground and off into the grass and headstones of its heart's desire).

                                         

FOSQ removing beans from green pod, eating contents on the spot, then discarding outer covering of beans, no bean left unturned.  These are the same beans that can be infested by the honeylocust seed beetle (Amblycerus robiniae) that Downy Woodpeckers prey on (see "The Hungry Bird" in "Colorado Birds" Issue 50(1), January 2016).

[As for the spelling error, in a post yesterday I mentioned a shorebird food item at A&B Res #1 on Weld CR124 w of CR77 as being "leaches".  "Leach" is what colored cotton clothes do in hot water.  A "leech" is a blood-sucking worm related to earthworms, which is, of course, what I meant.]

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins