Total of 26 species this morning, which is good for the cemetery.
Highlights were:
Plumbeous Vireo (1 on the move, heard both scolding and singing, no photos)
Lazuli Bunting (1 first-year male, heard for over half an hour in hackberry, suspected to be eating psyllids within nipplegalls, photographed atop a tall spruce).
Bushtit (at least 5, in hackberry in ne corner of Section E, eating blistergall psyllids from galls: birds ripped a sizeable chunk of leaf from the main leaf, stood on it chickadeestyle and pecked out the contents of the blistergalls (see attached "after" photo showing where the developing psyllids which would have emerged in 2-3 weeks were removed via delicate bushtit beak pecks). I have seen bushtits in hackberry before, but at a time of year when the adults are emerging and available outside galls. This removal from within galls is a first in my experience and is well-established for black-capped chickadees. In the way of review, blistergalls differ from nipplegalls in that they are small, angular, discolored (green at first, later purplish or black), barely raised areas of leaves infested by a particular species of psyllid. The nipplegalls are big bumps, made by a different species of psyllid and may be on the same leaf (see photo at bottom of this post).
House Finches (many obtaining nipplegalls psyllids by biting off the tops of the nymph-harboring galls).
American Redstart (1 female type along the ditch north of the entrance, on the move, no photos)
House Wren (brood of 4 hanging together, exploring together, mostly in bushes near the entry bridge).
Red-breasted Nuthatch (at least 15, busy caching spruce seeds, throughout the cemetery).
Red Crossbill (at least 2 moving about in the spruce crowns, seen or heard in varying numbers every visit over the last week or so)
Broad-tailed Hummingbird (1 recent fledgling, and saw 1 adult female feed the youngster, near the entry bridge, from an undiscovered 2nd brood nest).
Hairy Woodpecker (1 mountain race continues about midway along the south boundary road in a dying Austrian Pine just out on City Park 9 golf course. Probably getting bark beetles in the genus Ips.
Hammond's Flycatcher present for about the last week along the ditch south of the entry bridge has apparently moved on.
As a side note, I have NEVER seen the fox squirrels gorging on hackberry nipplegalls and the psyllid nymphs within the way they are this August. I think this is because other late summer foods like tree fruits (crabapples, etc.) are in short supply due to the late May freeze. Every hackberry has a crunchy mess under it, with zillions of early fallen leaves from which the majority of galls have been grazed. For birders who have failed to do their homework and learn what hackberry trees look like, just look now in urban neighborhoods and parks for deciduous trees with this squirrel-created mess, remember which ones they are, and check them out in mid-September to early October when the adult psyllids are flying and they would be attractive to migrating warblers, etc. (Picture below show two leaves: the top one has intact nipplegalls as they would appear at this time of year, the other shows a leaf with squirrel (or house finch) nipped galls. After the galls are consumed, the leaf is dropped, dries up, gets run over by cars or human shoes, and creates the mess mentioned above (not to be confused with the mess squirrels make with oak acorns, buckeyes, honeylocust pods and cones of conifers).
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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