Hello Thomas and everyone,
Thanks for the fun thread. I see that I can help you "tick off" one of the currently missing species: Tundra Swan. https://ebird.org/checklist/S61420925
I live on the edge of the Lac Amora Open Space in Broomfield at about 5400', and am fortunate to have a prairie dog colony outside my backyard, and am in close proximity to Stearns Lake in Boulder County, just to the north.
I'm a pretty dedicated yard lister, and in the 5 years I've been using eBird to keep my yard list, I've logged 130 species, including all three species of bluebirds, both shrikes, the four hummers, over a dozen species of sparrows, both waxwings, and just about all the diurnal raptors that typically occur in CO.
My most memorable yard bird was the time I looked outside to see what appeared to be a Redtail sitting on my back lawn. This was a bit strange, and as I stared at the bird, it became apparent it was too big to be a hawk, and I realized there was a Golden Eagle on my lawn. I took photos from the house at first, and then steeped outside, assuming it would fly away, but it did not. It became apparent the bird was injured, so I captured it (I used to volunteer for Birds of Prey Foundation), and brought it to Birds of Prey https://ebird.org/checklist/S165144647
Probably my rarest bird occurred when we had just returned from Australia, and I was sort of lamenting to my wife how in general, the birds in Colorado are so much less colorful than the ones we'd been seeing on our trip, when I looked out my living room window to see a male Scarlet Tanager in the yard. That was good fun. https://ebird.org/checklist/S56817229
Chris Petrizzo, Broomfield
Hi all,Every now and then one of us will share the excitement of adding a rarity or new species to a yard list, report yard list totals, or comment on local trends. And some of the lists, and variety of species, are really impressive (e.g. David Suddjian's, Gary Lefko's).Yellow Grosbeak, Pyrrhuloxia, Streak-backed Oriole, Long-billed Thrasher, Costa's Hummingbird, Laurence's Goldfinch, and even Anhinga come to mind as rarities that have shown up in or been observed from yards. (Perhaps the recent Brambling, too?)As a pretty obsessive yard lister (i.e. binocs always on, camera ready when outdoors, much of the time indoors too), I often wonder about others' experience with yard-listing.How long have you been keeping your list?What's your style of yard listing: casual, mainly feeder watching, moderate, dedicated, obsessed?How many species?Rarest, or favorite species?Most memorable experience?Location/habitat: urban, suburban, rural, etc?And the big question: if we tallied up all our yard lists, how close to Colorado's 520 species could we get?It seems likely that certain families would be less well-represented; shorebirds, waterfowl, and gulls, for example. But with neighborhoods lining bodies of water such as Boyd Lake, Lake Loveland, Marston Reservoir, Jackson Lake, and MacIntosh Lake (in Boulder), among many others, many of those species theoretically could have been counted on a yard list. Maybe some lucky person living on the shores of Boyd Lake has Long-tailed Jaeger, Slaty-backed Gull, and Garganey on their yard list!Wishing all good health, good birding, and an exciting Spring migration!--Thomas HeinrichMy answers to the questions above:15 yearsDedicated to obsessive152 speciesWood Thrush, Yellow-throated Warbler, N Cardinal, Common Redpoll, Bohemian WaxwingWatching spring raptor migration from the roof-top, 35 Broad-winged Hawks among 130 raptors of 10 species on one high-flow day (4/18/2020)Interface between suburban and open space, base of foothills, el. 5600'
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