[cobirds] northwestern Boulder County, July 21

Hey, everybody.

Hannah Floyd and I enjoyed off-and-on Boulder County birding during much of today, Friday, July 21.

We started off at Crane Hollow Road near Hygiene, which had a singing dickcissel, a singing bobolink, a silent eastern phoebe, and several eastern kingbirds. Next, where the St. Vrain River goes under 63rd/61st St., we heard a red-eyed vireo and a savannah sparrow, and we saw a couple of gray catbirds.

Then we joined up with the American Birding Association's Camp Colorado, which had assembled at Rabbit Mountain. The non-avian distractions were considerable: colorful and ginormous orthopterans, divers meadowhawks, scattered fritillaries, toads, venomous snakes, hulking beetles, svelte robber flies, and more. But we managed to squeeze in a bit of birding, with such sightings as a canyon wren, several blue grosbeaks, a couple of blue-gray gnatsnatchers, a handful of not-a-warbler-anymore yellow-breasted chats, and, on the drive out, a magnificent peregrine falcon.

Then it was over to Old South Road near Lyons, where we saw white-throated swifts, several glorious adult male lazuli buntings, widely scattered cordilleran flycatchers, a cooperative male black-chinned hummingbird, and a disappearing American dipper. An eight-spotted forester lumbered across the road, and two-tailed swallowtails were prolific.

Then we went to Larimer County. 

Then Hannah and I, having said goodbye to Camp Colorado, returned to blessèd Boulder County, but not without first incurring the wrath of an impressive Larimer County hailstorm. Anyhow, back in Boulder County, we studied hummingbirds at the Fawn Brook Inn, Allenspark, where we saw a few rufous hummingbirds and a mighty company of broad-tailed hummingbirds, including a beautiful leucistic individual.

Our last bird of the afternoon, on the drive down Route 7 toward Lyons, was a juvenile dipper standing on a rock in Middle St. Vrain Creek.

See below for pix of the peregrine, the leucistic broad-tail, a "normal" broad-tail, the Rte 7 dipper, and a Rabbit Mountain lark sparrow. Lots more of course on Facebook, including insects and herps and such.

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County

 

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