I posted yesterday about a flycatcher at Cheesman Park in Denver. It turned out to be a Cordilleran. Today, there was another -- seemingly different -- flycatcher at the Gardens that also may be a Cordilleran. Today, the flycatcher was hanging out in the same general area as a Rock Wren, not far from the Common Poorwill, in the Dryland Mesa garden. It was foraging low in some of the bushy plants in the garden. (Photographs of the May 2 bird are here: https://birderbyaccident.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/cheesman-park-flycatcher/ and of the May 3 bird are here: https://birderbyaccident.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/denver-botanic-gardens-unidentified-bird/)
The poorwill appears to have perched for the better part of the day in the slate of the Conservation Garden. I posted about the bird around 10:00 a.m. Jeff Dawson reported it on eBird at 3:30 p.m. I'm glad to see the foot traffic didn't disturb the bird. A trail through the Conservation Garden brings passerby within ten or so feet of the bird; the trails through the Lilac Garden behind the bird put people even closer, I'd guess. A photograph of what non-birding passerby saw when they looked at this garden is here: https://birderbyaccident.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/dsc_0361-poorwill-zoomed-out.jpg. Two additional photos of the bird are here: https://birderbyaccident.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/denver-botanic-gardens-common-poorwill/
I was glad to find this bird at the Gardens again and get a proper look. In May 2013, I may (or may not) have seen a poorwill at the Gardens. At the time, I was in my second spring as a birder and my first in Colorado. I was using binoculars that offered a small field of vision and dull images. I hadn't yet seen a Common Nighthawk, so had no real point of reference for what I saw. And all I saw was a bird that struck me as the right size for a poorwill and had rounded wings. Given my inexperience and the rather ambiguous views I had of the bird, I didn't report or list it then. Interestingly, I flushed that probable poorwill from the same area where I first flushed this bird: the trails among the lilacs.
Yesterday, an Osprey flew over the Gardens. This caught me off guard, and I was fortunate to get some lousy photographs that confirmed that the bird I thought was an Osprey indeed was. Later in that visit, some Turkey Vulture came in; I quickly counted five. As they left the sky over the Gardens and Cheesman, I noticed some didn't look much like vulture. I took more lousy photographs, which may show a Swainson's Hawk. All of this led me to attend more carefully to the flyovers and photograph birds when they're directly overhead, rather than calling all large birds above me either the resident Red-tails or TV, shrugging my shoulders, and moving on. This paid off today, when a Broad-winged Hawk flew over the Gardens. Photographs are here: https://birderbyaccident.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/denver-botanic-gardens-broad-winged-hawk/
It has been something of an education trying to identify the hawks that merely pass by the park and Gardens. I've noticed that migrating raptors seem to prefer to enter the sky over the Gardens by its southwestern edge (approximately 9th and Race or Vine St.). Virtually all of the vultures I've seen this spring have come from that direction; so too did the possible Swainson's, the Broad-winged Hawk, and the Osprey. If you find yourself at the Gardens, it may be worth spending a moment or two looking at the usually empty sky on that edge...
Broad-tailed Hummingbird numbers in the Garden seem to be increasing; there were at least three in the main Gardens today and there has been another one in the children's garden. A flock of at least a dozen Chipping Sparrow seem to be hanging around, too. Barn and Violet-green Swallow fly over the Gardens, occasionally coming down low with the visitors. A few Canada Geese are hanging around, but I've seen volunteers at the Garden chase them away with something that looks like a laundry detergent container on a rope. A pair of Cooper's Hawks, which I think is made up of an adult female and a juvenile male is nest building on the western edge of Cheesman. A red-tail pair is doing the same on the northern edge of "Little Cheesman," the small extension of Cheesman between 8th and 7th Avenues. Finally, at Cheesman this morning, I came upon an American Robin repurposing our mess for itself. A photograph of it collecting a heap of plastic or paper for a nest is here: https://birderbyaccident.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/dsc_0270-robin-with-mouthful-of-mess.jpg
- Jared Del Rosso
Denver, CO
-- The poorwill appears to have perched for the better part of the day in the slate of the Conservation Garden. I posted about the bird around 10:00 a.m. Jeff Dawson reported it on eBird at 3:30 p.m. I'm glad to see the foot traffic didn't disturb the bird. A trail through the Conservation Garden brings passerby within ten or so feet of the bird; the trails through the Lilac Garden behind the bird put people even closer, I'd guess. A photograph of what non-birding passerby saw when they looked at this garden is here: https://birderbyaccident.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/dsc_0361-poorwill-zoomed-out.jpg. Two additional photos of the bird are here: https://birderbyaccident.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/denver-botanic-gardens-common-poorwill/
I was glad to find this bird at the Gardens again and get a proper look. In May 2013, I may (or may not) have seen a poorwill at the Gardens. At the time, I was in my second spring as a birder and my first in Colorado. I was using binoculars that offered a small field of vision and dull images. I hadn't yet seen a Common Nighthawk, so had no real point of reference for what I saw. And all I saw was a bird that struck me as the right size for a poorwill and had rounded wings. Given my inexperience and the rather ambiguous views I had of the bird, I didn't report or list it then. Interestingly, I flushed that probable poorwill from the same area where I first flushed this bird: the trails among the lilacs.
Yesterday, an Osprey flew over the Gardens. This caught me off guard, and I was fortunate to get some lousy photographs that confirmed that the bird I thought was an Osprey indeed was. Later in that visit, some Turkey Vulture came in; I quickly counted five. As they left the sky over the Gardens and Cheesman, I noticed some didn't look much like vulture. I took more lousy photographs, which may show a Swainson's Hawk. All of this led me to attend more carefully to the flyovers and photograph birds when they're directly overhead, rather than calling all large birds above me either the resident Red-tails or TV, shrugging my shoulders, and moving on. This paid off today, when a Broad-winged Hawk flew over the Gardens. Photographs are here: https://birderbyaccident.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/denver-botanic-gardens-broad-winged-hawk/
It has been something of an education trying to identify the hawks that merely pass by the park and Gardens. I've noticed that migrating raptors seem to prefer to enter the sky over the Gardens by its southwestern edge (approximately 9th and Race or Vine St.). Virtually all of the vultures I've seen this spring have come from that direction; so too did the possible Swainson's, the Broad-winged Hawk, and the Osprey. If you find yourself at the Gardens, it may be worth spending a moment or two looking at the usually empty sky on that edge...
Broad-tailed Hummingbird numbers in the Garden seem to be increasing; there were at least three in the main Gardens today and there has been another one in the children's garden. A flock of at least a dozen Chipping Sparrow seem to be hanging around, too. Barn and Violet-green Swallow fly over the Gardens, occasionally coming down low with the visitors. A few Canada Geese are hanging around, but I've seen volunteers at the Garden chase them away with something that looks like a laundry detergent container on a rope. A pair of Cooper's Hawks, which I think is made up of an adult female and a juvenile male is nest building on the western edge of Cheesman. A red-tail pair is doing the same on the northern edge of "Little Cheesman," the small extension of Cheesman between 8th and 7th Avenues. Finally, at Cheesman this morning, I came upon an American Robin repurposing our mess for itself. A photograph of it collecting a heap of plastic or paper for a nest is here: https://birderbyaccident.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/dsc_0270-robin-with-mouthful-of-mess.jpg
- Jared Del Rosso
Denver, CO
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