A week ago I was on a St. Petersburg (FL) Audubon field trip to a spot called Brooker Creek Preserve in Pinellas County, Florida. During the initial conversations before we set off into the woods in earnest, one of the other birders said, “I’ve been on a trip where you were the leader once. It was to feeders in the mountains of Colorado.”
Back in Colorado this weekend, I decided to head to the mountains. Well, Brooker Creek was a lot different than Ward! Today I didn’t see any Red-shouldered Hawks, White Ibis or Blue-head Vireos, but there was one species in common (though the subspecies was different). Any guesses?
The weather was pretty cooperative, at least with respect to the winds which stayed in the single digits. That’s almost dead calm along the Peak to Peak Highway. It was snowing, but in the relatively calm conditions, that was a nice change of pace for this soon to be out-of-stater. Ward wasn’t very exciting, however, with the most noteworthy observation being of a Dark-eyed (white-winged) Junco.
Allenspark was much more active bird-wise, even with the old Fawn Brook Inn feeding station closed down. I drove through town and then parked at intersection of 107 and 107E (everything in Allenspark seems to be called Ski Road—both 107 and 107E are so named), and walked back toward the center of town. Along this road there were at least five observable and active feeders. Two turkeys under one of them was a surprise, and a pair of Clark’s Nutcrackers over looked things from fir-tops. I was especially happy to have a flock of almost 50 Evening Grosbeaks noisily chirping around as that was a year-bird for me.
The species in common? White-breasted Nuthatch.
Bill Kaempfer
Almost fully of Safety Harbor, FL
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