Took a monster walk yesterday both north (Riverbend and Cattail Chorus Natural Areas) and south (Prospect Ponds, Cottonwood Hollow and Running Deer Natural Areas) yesterday, 16November from about 10am to 4pm.
Highlights north of Prospect on the west side of the river along the bike trail:
*Mourning Dove (7)
*Hooded Merganser (1f)
*Bufflehead (1f)
Lowlight:
Haven't seen a "good" bird in the area dubbed, and known locally as, "The Good Spot" in years.
Children, teachers and parent volunteers from nearby private elementary school off-trail building dead branch forts, yelling and screaming, throwing rocks and sticks, acting in all manner inconsistent with a "natural area", and doing so with a permit from our City Natural Areas Department. What the heck? I'm all for kids having fun in the great outdoors but.... Some of us get tickets and pay court costs for walking off-trail in these same "Natural" Areas, either to see what kind of snake a magpie is carrying, to avoid being run over by City trucks driving the trail, or being injured by bikers going 30mph who have never heard of the phrase "on your left". No comprende'.
Highlights south of Prospect on both the west and east side of the river, mostly east:
*Swamp Sparrow (1i in the same marsh as reported earlier by Joe Mammoser but on the west side: that is, sw of the Running Deer parking area with a rest room along Prospect (walk west from parking area for couple hundred yards along north side of expansive marsh until you get to the nw corner of marsh, follow path south along the west side of the marsh for 130 giant steps to where the path diverts from its mostly straight n-w vector and curves a little to the southwest. Bird was in the marsh to the east of path at this point. Do they eat cattail seeds (see photo)?
*Red Crossbill (a flock of 16 flew over, sounded like Type 2s ("kip-kip, kip...."). Not normal over gravel ponds gone feral.
*Bald Eagle (two adults perched together atop one of the tall high tension poles). Probably the pair that nests south of here (east of the N. CO Environmental Learning Center). Fun to look straight up at perched eagles.
*Distant lone female scaup I suspected at the time might be a Greater but upon scrutiny of a bad but definitive photo with wing-stripe showing proved to be a Lesser.
*Virginia Rail - heard briefly in the same cattail marsh as the Swamp Sparrow. Maybe can put it on the shelf for CBC.
*Marsh Wren (at least 3)
Total for both sides of the river: 40
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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