Changes I noticed today at Sheldon Lake in Fort Collins City Park vs. yesterday:
*Double-crested Cormorant juvenile on the log in the se part of the lake (hasn't been a cormorant in over a month that I've seen)
*Influx of Canada Geese (flock of 40 or so, mostly Lessers)
Highlights from Grandview Cemetery and the block just e of it:
*Hermit Thrush (3) - by far my nominee for "Fire-Influenced Bird of the Season". Yesterday I had 6. They are along the river south of Prospect, in Eaton, at Crow Valley, in Lamar, in numbers I would say are 2-3 times more than normal, especially for late October. I usually see 2-3 a year in 50 or so visits to Grandview. They are everywhere this fall, almost the way Swainson's Thrushes are on a few peak days in May. In the cemetery they are eating the fruits of common buckthorn, cotoneaster and honeysuckle.
*Both American and Lesser Goldfinches persist, mostly at feeders, but today a male Lesser was gorging on black-eyed susan seed heads.
*A marauding flock of 20+ Bushtits checked out all possible woody plants, both deciduous and coniferous, for whatever they could find. I suspect various aphids, aphid predators, and egg sacs of spiders, mantids and assassin bugs in the genus Zelus were among items heavily exploited.
*Big influx of juncos, mostly slate-colored and pink-sided, with a few Oregon. Saw one small group jumping up on tall (thigh high), ornamental grass with seed heads in a yard. Mostly they are staying low and plucking seeds of what I think is prostrate knotweed (Polygonum aviculare), and introduced weed.
*Mountain Chickadees might be giving Hermit Thrush a run for the title mentioned above, OR they are just having one of their big irruptions to low elevation even without the big fires. Whatever the reason, they are expected every visit now and probably will be until next April.
* I had three Cassin's Finches last weekend but they seem to have gone elsewhere.
Total species combined for Sheldon Lake and Grandview Cemetery: 26
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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