Hello, Everybody.
Dave Leatherman says it will be interesting to see the bushtit map in the 2nd Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas. What can I say?--We aim to please. Here is the bushtit "change map" from the 2nd Atlas:
On Sunday, March 13, 2016 at 10:27:38 AM UTC-6, Dave Leatherman wrote:
-- Dave Leatherman says it will be interesting to see the bushtit map in the 2nd Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas. What can I say?--We aim to please. Here is the bushtit "change map" from the 2nd Atlas:
http://tinyurl.com/CoBu-CBBA2
Dave also notes that there is a synchronicity between the ongoing Colorado range shifts of the bushtit and the black-chinned hummingbird, and it sure seems that way to me too. All along, I've been assuming that both species are responding to climate change, but Boulder County ornitho-historian Steve Jones recently suggested to me that it may be more complex than that. Unbeknownst to me until my conversation with Steve, bushtits occurred, at least sporadically, in Boulder [is the best] County in the mid-20th century. They disappeared in the late 20th century, only to return with a vengeance in the early 21st century. So perhaps bushtits are responding to a return to prior conditions?
As to what bushtits are eating, I note that Boulder County bushtits have an insatiable appetite for suet, and that Boulder County humans have an uncontrollable proclivity for hanging suet feeders. The preceding is not to gainsay any of Dave's reasonable-seeming conjectures about the diet of bushtits in the northern Front Range metro region; but I wouldn't be surprised if the proliferation of suet feeders is aiding and abetting these eye-poking, constantly sputtering, marauding hordes of little gray cotton balls with toothpicks for tails.
Back to the Atlas 2 "change map" (link above) for a moment. Practically all the species recorded in Atlas 2 have similarly cool change maps. You really want to buy this book, and I have no financial interest in the matter. I am simply providing a public service announcement.
Ted Floyd
Dave also notes that there is a synchronicity between the ongoing Colorado range shifts of the bushtit and the black-chinned hummingbird, and it sure seems that way to me too. All along, I've been assuming that both species are responding to climate change, but Boulder County ornitho-historian Steve Jones recently suggested to me that it may be more complex than that. Unbeknownst to me until my conversation with Steve, bushtits occurred, at least sporadically, in Boulder [is the best] County in the mid-20th century. They disappeared in the late 20th century, only to return with a vengeance in the early 21st century. So perhaps bushtits are responding to a return to prior conditions?
As to what bushtits are eating, I note that Boulder County bushtits have an insatiable appetite for suet, and that Boulder County humans have an uncontrollable proclivity for hanging suet feeders. The preceding is not to gainsay any of Dave's reasonable-seeming conjectures about the diet of bushtits in the northern Front Range metro region; but I wouldn't be surprised if the proliferation of suet feeders is aiding and abetting these eye-poking, constantly sputtering, marauding hordes of little gray cotton balls with toothpicks for tails.
Back to the Atlas 2 "change map" (link above) for a moment. Practically all the species recorded in Atlas 2 have similarly cool change maps. You really want to buy this book, and I have no financial interest in the matter. I am simply providing a public service announcement.
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado
P.s. 43 horned grebes yesterday evening, Sunday, Mar. 13 on Panama Reservoir, Boulder County.
P.s. 43 horned grebes yesterday evening, Sunday, Mar. 13 on Panama Reservoir, Boulder County.
On Sunday, March 13, 2016 at 10:27:38 AM UTC-6, Dave Leatherman wrote:
Ted Floyd reported bushtits nest building at Greenlee Preserve near Boulder yesterday. I can add a report from Fort Collins. Also yesterday, I was quite surprised to see bushtits building a nest from the front door of my apartment. I live about a mile east of CSU in an older residential area. The nest tree is actually on the property to the south, which hangs over the boundary fence to our complex. The nest is about 20 feet up on the east side (gets the morning sun) of a very large Colorado Blue Spruce. BNA says nest construction can take anywhere from 2-7 weeks to complete and that spider webs are integral to their construction. This nest is well enough along to have the general ball shape of a finished nest but is still very well concealed within the spruce needles.
What the BNA account doesn't reflect very well is the current permanent range of this bird. The range map is what I would call the 1980 range map when bushtits were mostly on the far West Slope and regularly along the Front Range only south of Colorado Springs. Definitely a change. The extent and timing of their expansion seems to parallel quite closely that of black-chinned hummingbird. Both birds now extend northward into southern WY. Will be interesting to see what BBA II shows.
As an additional note, we need to figure out the new foods that have allowed this expansion to be successful. I have personally seen them getting Kermes scale insects from oaks at Denver Botanic Gardens, various aphids at the PERC Gardens at CSU, hackberry gall-making psyllids at Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins, and my friend Doug Swartz here in Fort Collins showed me hawthorns full of mealybugs that he has observed often host bushtits. At LCC in Lamar they are often in tamarisk (getting aphids and attendant lacewings?). In my apartment complex they are often in junipers which I know have aphids. I suspect they are also getting boxelder psyllids.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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