A dozen DFO members bundled against 16-degree starting temperatures today, Dec. 3, for our first DFO field trip at 200-acre First Creek at DEN Open Space, the City/County of Denver's new (summer 2016) open space site.
Despite creeping surface ice and an off-season date for a Plains cottonwood-and-riparian locale, it was a promising debut: 37 species!
No rarities (except that our TWO northern shrikes earned an eBird flag), but this late in the fall, everything felt like a highlight:
Eight bald eagles, a dozen red-tailed hawks (and a ferruginous, a northern harrier and a prairie falcon), a marsh wren and a very cooperative Wilson's snipe, three Townsend's solitaires, five kinds of sparrows, two great blue herons, goldfinches and house finches, woodpeckers and kingfishers, scores of mallards and a couple of thousand flyover Canada and cackling geese, plus the usual winter flocks of starlings and red-winged blackbirds.
All within shouting distance of the busy Peña Boulevard access road to DIA. At one point, two adult bald eagles even did car-level flybys along the shoulder of the southbound lanes.
Count on more DFO field trips to come in this great new close-in hotspot. Buckley Road, which runs the length of the open space's shared west boundary with Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR and beyond, is shaping up to be an excellent winter raptor destination in its own right. Check it out soon.
In fact, consider joining the team that will bird First Creek and surrounding areas this coming New Year's Day for Audubon's Denver Urban Christmas Count. For details and contacts, click here:
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