[cobirds] Yard Birds - Centennial (Arapahoe)

It was hard to get work done yesterday (8/16) from home, as my backyard was filled with birds. The day started, over breakfast, with two hummers chasing each other around my patio feeder, as my wife, dog,  and I watched. I couldn't identify either then, but later sightings showed them to be a Calliope & Broad-tailed. Elsewhere in the yard, flocks of Black-capped Chickadees and House Finches (about a half dozen each) visited my suet and platform feeders. A family(?) of Chipping Sparrows fed, all day, in my weed gardens (wild arugula, purslane, and pigweed); I suspect this means the weeds have gone to seed. Two Downy Woodpeckers & two Red-breasted Nuthatches also stopped by.

Later, around 10:30, a flock of about 17 Bushtits moved in, foraging among my two Honey Locust trees and my suet. Usually, the flocks of Bushtits come & go, moving yard to yard through my neighborhood. These birds stayed the day & into this morning, raiding the suet & honey locust every few hours. The flocks of chickadees, House Finches, Chipping Sparrows were still around. A family of Spotted Towhees also came out to forage, as did one House Wren. A White-breasted Nuthatch called from nearby. And a Blue Jay made sporadic visits to my platform feeder. The tanager seemed gone. But a Western Wood Pewee had arrived, flycatching with fairly long flights through my yard. 

Both the breakfast and 10:30 watches ended with a Cooper's Hawk buzzing the yard.

Still later in the afternoon, I thought I saw a Northern Flicker with fairly yellow underwings. While I've seen integrades up in Denver, I haven't yet spotted any in around Arapahoe Co. So I followed this flicker into one of the honey locust trees, looking for it from beneath the trees branches. Instead, I was entertained by the Broad-tailed, which flew around the underside of the tree, indifferent to me. It came within arm's length at one point, close enough for me to watch it move its legs as it maneuvered in flight. While watching that bird, I lost the flicker, but found one -- seemingly red-shafted -- with a red mustache and just traces of red on its nape. While watching that bird, there was a commotion on the other side of my yard and I turned in time to see an enormous-seeming Red-tailed Hawk crash / dive into my row of sunflowers. It missed whatever it was after.

All in all, about 25 birds in the yard yesterday, plus an unidentified gull around sunset -- probably a Ring-billed, which seem to have begun returning to parking lots in the areas -- and a blackbird flyover, heard but not seen.  

- Jared Del Rosso

Centennial, CO

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