[cobirds] Pacific Wren - Wild Basin - Rocky Mountain National Park

Greetings all –

 

On my way to Pear Lake in Wild Basin yesterday, I swung by Calypso Cascades to see about this probable Pacific Wren (PAWR) initially reported as a "stub-tailed wren" by Jeff Connor on the RMNP Solstice Bird Count on 6/20 and then eBirded and reported as PAWR by Andy Bankert 7/3 and Bill Rowe on 7/7.

 

Knowing that photographs are often not enough to separate the species from Winter Wren (WIWR) reliably, my goal was to obtain audio recordings in addition to pictures.

 

I first heard the song of a stub-tailed wren about 150 yards downstream of the bridge.  I spent a good 40 minutes trying to get a visual on the bird.

 

Determining where he is singing from was greatly complicated by the roar of Cony Creek which was probably in some sort of flood stage due to the rains the prior day/night. 

 

I succeeded in getting pictures which look OK for PAWR.

 

Eventually, the enthusiastic little songster moved to a location a short distance from Cony Creek where I managed to capture several audio clips (just using my iPhone's Voice Memo capability).  Last night just before crashing for the evening, I sent these off to Nathan Pieplow for his expert opinion.  While I felt the song sounded like PAWR versus WIWR, I don't have complete faith in my ears.

 

Nathan responded, "By spectrogram and by ear, this is a Pacific Wren."

 

Detailed location instructions:

The bird is in the Wild Basin section of Rocky Mountain National Park.  He is located approximately 1.9 miles up the trail towards Ouzel Falls.  The location is just before you get to Calypso Cascades which are obvious and have a large bridge crossing Cony Creek.  The bird is down-stream from this bridge.  He moves around a fair amount.

 

Couple cautions:

Parking in Wild Basin is very limited (especially on weekends in July).  Arrive early.

The trail is rough in spots courtesy of the 2013 floods - completely passable, but not the smoother trail of prior years.

The monsoon rain that area has received has taken North St. Vrain Creek out of the creek bed as of yesterday.  There is a water crossing on the trail just after the first bridge (at 1.5 miles) that was a bit deep in places (you can rock/log hop to stay dry).

 

Many thanks to Nathan for once again listening to one of my stub-tailed wren recording.

 

Good birding,

Kathy Mihm Dunning

Denver

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CADLK-OKzf1A7kbKd8cagCDDkGuBUPTRQnjVCwZG-%2BhDBRX0rKA%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.