At the risk of sounding too enthusiastic about the common-enough Common Nighthawk...After a few dawns and dusks spent staking them out around my neighborhood, I'm happy to say I came upon them this evening in both Denver & Arapahoe counties. Both encounters were serendipitous. The first occurred as I left DU this evening, an hour later than I usually do. As soon as I stepped outside, I heard the birds' familiar call, scanned the skies, and spotted two of them flying toward me, east over Evans Ave.
The good, dumb luck continued on my drive home. As I waited to turn left onto my road (almost directly south of DU, off University Ave, across from deKoevend Park [Arapahoe]), I spotted two more nighthawks flying over deKoevend's parking lot. A minute or so later, I watched from my front yard as they cut up my street and a third appeared. Later, from the back yard, two of them flew relatively low over me, providing good looks. Like the birds at DU, these flew off, eastward.
Later, still in the back yard, I heard an incessant call or chip that I figured was a towhee's. I followed it until I spotted an adult male. But a second bird appeared that, without my binoculars, looked to me not like the yard female but a fledgling. Last summer, I watched at least one fledgling wander around my yard to be fed by an adult. If my memory serves me right, it was the male doing the feeding. (I regret not using the eBird breeding code with my checklist then; when that sighting occurred is lost to me, but I think it was later in the summer.) But this bird didn't appear ready to wander the yard, seeming to prefer a perch in the overgrown bush at the edge of my yard. I've yet to discover a towhee nest in my yard; they may actually be nesting among my neighbors.
- Jared Del Rosso
Centennial, CO
-- The good, dumb luck continued on my drive home. As I waited to turn left onto my road (almost directly south of DU, off University Ave, across from deKoevend Park [Arapahoe]), I spotted two more nighthawks flying over deKoevend's parking lot. A minute or so later, I watched from my front yard as they cut up my street and a third appeared. Later, from the back yard, two of them flew relatively low over me, providing good looks. Like the birds at DU, these flew off, eastward.
Later, still in the back yard, I heard an incessant call or chip that I figured was a towhee's. I followed it until I spotted an adult male. But a second bird appeared that, without my binoculars, looked to me not like the yard female but a fledgling. Last summer, I watched at least one fledgling wander around my yard to be fed by an adult. If my memory serves me right, it was the male doing the feeding. (I regret not using the eBird breeding code with my checklist then; when that sighting occurred is lost to me, but I think it was later in the summer.) But this bird didn't appear ready to wander the yard, seeming to prefer a perch in the overgrown bush at the edge of my yard. I've yet to discover a towhee nest in my yard; they may actually be nesting among my neighbors.
- Jared Del Rosso
Centennial, CO
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