This evening (8/17), I visited Marjorie Perry Nature Preserve in Greenwood Village (Arapahoe) for a short walk. During the hour before sunset and through dusk, I picked up my first mosquito bites & Lark Sparrows at the preserve. The mosquitoes were everywhere; the sparrows (two) were walking with me up and down the dirt path near the ponds.
-- Also of note...along the path that cuts between the two main ponds were a few Black-capped Chickadees and Lesser Goldfinches. An adult male Yellow Warbler, singing some sort of Yellow Warblerish song, was there too. Two Western Kingbirds and a Western Wood Pewee were also near the ponds. (This is the first I've seen of the kingbirds near the water at the preserve. Usually, they're in the fields.) On the pond was a cormorant, a kingfisher, a few Black-crowned Night Herons, and mallards.
I stayed through dusk, hoping to hear some marsh birds (nope) or spot a nighthawk (nope). But I did get to hear two calling Great Horns. And on the way out, a third flew low over the path that leads away from the preserve and into the surrounding community, making a brief, harsh screech as it went. It perched near the High Line Canal Trail and kept repeating the call.
Which brings me to the fly-catching nuthatch. I saw it on the same path as the owl, but earlier, on my way into the preserve. Near a section of trail flanked by small conifers, a Red-breasted Nuthatch was "sallying" from one side of the trail to another, perching on the wooden fence posts as it went. I've never seen nuthatches do this, so it took me a moment to establish that the small, dark flycatcher wasn't some unexpected bird but a common enough bird doing something uncommon. For its effort, the nuthatch gained a small moth, which it picked out of the air before flying back into the trees.
Elsewhere in west Arapahoe Co....I had Black-chinned and Calliope hummingbirds (one each) in my yard today. At one point, those two and a third (unidentified) coexisted, perched in a tree near each other. That changed, of course, as soon as I grabbed my camera. I also saw, albeit poorly, the flicker, which I noted in an earlier post, that seems to have a very yellow underside.
- Jared Del Rosso
Centennial, CO
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