[cobirds] Routt County, Aug. 30 - Sept. 2

Hello, everybody. Andrew Floyd and I are back now from the 7th annual Yampa Valley Crane Festival, based out of Steamboat Springs and Hayden, Routt County. Some highlights for us:

Thursday evening, Aug. 30, Rabbit Ears Pass. Canada jay! I get to say that now, woohoo! A life name!

Friday morning, Aug. 31, Carpenter Ranch. The first bird of the morning was a flyover peregrine falcon.

Friday morning, Aug. 31, Yampa River Preserve. For nearly an hour, a Lewis woodpecker flycatched from a tall dead spruce.

Friday afternoon, Aug. 31, Yampa River Botanical Garden. We were mesmerized by a dozen broad-tailed hummingbirds and white-lined sphinx moths ("hummingbird moths") foraging side-by-side in a patch of coneflowers and petunias. Also a black-chinned hummingbird and some spuhs.

Saturday morning, Sept. 1, Rotary Trail. When we arrived, we were treated to the astonishing spectacle of more than 1,800 violet-green swallows coming off a night roost on the high electrical wires near the trailhead. Also in goodly numbers were western wood-pewee (15), green-tailed towhee (20), and western tanager (20). Nice birds along the trail included gray flycatcher, Cassin vireo, Townsend warbler, and a family group of rock wrens.

Saturday evening, Sept. 1, Carpenter Ranch. A casual walk around the grounds of the ranch headquarters produced several common nighthawks migrating south.

Sunday, Sept. 2, Carpenter Ranch. The birding was splendid, and our "morning" bird walk spilled into the afternoon hours. The highlight for me, for sure, was the "swallow slam": barn, cliff, tree, violet-green, bank, and northern rough-winged swallows and purple martin. Another delight was seeing four bobolinks in their pumpkin-orange fall/winter plumage, something we rarely see here in Colorado. And it was surreal to see 12+ western warbling vireos all in the same grove of Gambel oaks; I'd never before seen an honest-to-goodness flock of the species. Some other odds and ends at the ranch included 3 wood ducks, 1 Calliope hummingbird, 1 Sora, ~10 sandhill cranes, 10 Wilson snipes, 1 Hammond flycatcher, 1 juniper titmouse, 5 marsh wrens, 2 Swainson thrushes, and 4 gray catbirds. Our group saw 75 species at the ranch proper that day, and I am aware that other birders saw birds we missed.

Sunday evening, Sept. 2, Yampavian Ranch. An oddity was two Eurasian collared-doves cuddling on the beak of a great blue heron. For the rest of the story, go to Facebook . . . 

Thanks to Nancy Merrill and everybody with the Yampa Valley Crane Festival for the fantastic festival. And thanks to Betsy Blakeslee and The Nature Conservancy in Colorado for hosting so many of the events that Andrew and I were involved with.

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County

 

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