It's true. From the county birding perspective little montane Gilpin is one of the toughest counties to progress in toward a friendly goal of 100 species — a milestone pretty straight forward to reach in several serious birding visits in many Colorado Counties. Not to end there on the county birding journey, of course, but even getting there in little Gilpin is a fun challenge. A visit today with two others seeking county birds ran into a paucity of land birds generally (but there are always spots), and few waterbirds (as expected in G) with just three kinds of waterbirds on about 10 reservoirs and ponds. Our only diving ducks were Mallards, which were diving intently after something down deep at Los Lagos Reservoir.
Yet today there was still lovely fall color, with spectacular glowing aspens and cottonwoods, and my favorite apricot orange aspen color, too. So Gilpin was good for color yet.
And we had 6 Red Crossbills along the roadside for an extended time at Upper Apex Valley Road. This is a short way up from Apex Valley Rd, where a large weedy patch on the downslope side has gone to seed and is attracting a flock of 50+ Pine Siskins and some Cassin's Finches. The crossbills were Type 2, and over my ramblings this year there have been very few crossbills around anywhere. These were my first since July. So that spot in Gilpin was fun.
If you want to be near the center of abundance of Townsend's Solitaires, you could do worse than a morning stroll along Smith Road, where junipers are a principal draw for now semi-social solitaires; even in loose groups they chase each other and seem to argue for their personal space. In the right spots, Gilpin has its share of solitaires.
And there was Robinson Hill Road, which we reached after a stunning climb up Douglas Mountain Road through the wrong county. Great vistas! And once over the Gilpin line, in nice Ponderosa forest my Pygmy-owl imitation swung the tide of birds from a quiet ebb into to a wave of chattering nuthatches, chickadees and juncos looking for the "owl". There had been just a few voices, but when they came forth we were impressed with how quickly they gathered, filling a void with their excitement for those few minutes. So Gilpin was fun up there.
And if you want to increase your powers of imagining mythical Gilpin waterbirds, just try staring at the mirror reflections of the trees and sky in the bird free ponds. It may inspire you to try again another day when there may be a real waterbirds.
David Suddjian and company,
Home now from Gilpin until next time
Sent from my iPhone
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