Re: [cobirds] Re: Yard list questions: How many of CO's 520 species have been seen (or heard) from a yard?

Jason, what marvelous experiences you must have had on your Paonia-area farm (a special part of CO, in my opinion.)

Thank you for sharing your list, and especially for the work you did to vegetate the area along the river.

And also for alerting me/us to the YBCU moniker of Rain Crow. That was news to me.

Black Swifts, mountain lions and river otters, oh my!

Linda

Linda Hodges

Colorado Springs

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 7:54 AM Jason Beason <aeronautes.saxatalis@gmail.com> wrote:

Very interesting discussion! Thank you Mr. Heinrich for initiating this!

My family and I lived near Paonia for 13 years (2004-2017) in Delta County. My list is all historical information since I moved to Wyoming. We owned 10 acres that crossed the North Fork of the Gunnison River at the northwest corner of the property at approximately 5500' elevation. Lots of large cottonwood trees (narrowleaf, Fremont, and hybrids) and dense understory of buffalo berry, box elder, willow etc along the river. Also, a small marsh and beaver pond where we saw River Otters a couple times. I received a grant to plant one acre of shrubs along the river which was fun to watch grow during the years we were there.

Dedicated birding

192 species

Lots of favorites and some rare (in order most recent to oldest):

Favorite: We managed a profitable small farm (everything we grew was legal!) with five greenhouses that we built ourselves named Rain Crow Farm after the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. We heard and saw cuckoos frequently during the summer months and I eventually was able to start a small project when I worked for Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory/Bird Conservancy of the Rockies conducting surveys on the west slope of Colorado. We were lucky to confirm breeding near Hotchkiss and found an active nest in 2008. The species was listed as "threatened" by the USFWS west of the continental divide in 2014.

Rare or unusual species list:

Magnolia Warbler

Common Ground Dove (6th state record)

Nashville Warbler

Black Phoebe

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Long-billed Curlew

Bohemian Waxwing (irruption winter of 2013)

Common Redpoll (irruption winter of 2012)

American Goshawk

Canada Jay (unusual away from spruce-fir habitat)

Indigo Bunting

White-winged Dove

Northern Pygmy-Owl

Black-and-white Warbler

Eastern Bluebird

Juniper Titmouse (lots of PJ nearby)

Willow Flycatcher

Gray Flycatcher

Yellow-throated Vireo

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Sage Thrasher

Harris's Sparrow

Virginia Rail

Pinyon Jay

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Cassin's Vireo

Purple Martin (breed on Grand Mesa nearby)

Black Swift

Brown-capped Rosy-Finch

American Dipper

Bewick's Wren

Black-crowned Night Heron

Bobolink

Lark Bunting

Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch

White-throated Sparrow

Pygmy Nuthatch

Swamp Sparrow

American Redstart

Dickcissel (not sure how many west slope records there are but one was singing a couple days in June of 2006 near our pasture)

Band-tailed Pigeon (flocks would fly over the river often)

Green Heron

Lewis's Woodpecker (not at all rare in this area, bred in my front yard most years we were there)

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Barn Owl

Ash-throated Flycatcher

Mammals: Mountain Lion (killed a couple of our goats and I saw one once while birding along the river), River Otter, Mink, Black Bear (killed many of our and neighbors chickens)

Most memorable experience?

Seeing and hearing a Vaux's Swift on 5/3/2007 near the river. No photo or recording was obtained so the record was not accepted by CBRC.

Good Birding!

Jason Beason

(Currently in Lander, WY where my yard list is up to 129 species!)

On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 1:02 PM Jeff Kehoe <jeff.kehoe@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm in Larimer County on the Big Thompson River.

7 years
moderate birder - lots of feeders year round
83 species
most memorable - wave of migrating Western Tanagers in May stopped by a snowstorm
foothills riparian  habitat - 1 acre

Some Favorites - always hard
-----------------------
American Dipper - regular visitor
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Evening Grosbeak
Red Crossbill
Indigo Bunting
Green-tailed Towhee
Red-headed Woodpecker
Great Egret

Canyon Wren - picking bugs from spider webs on the porch

On Monday, March 11, 2024 at 10:40:41 AM UTC-6 Thomas Heinrich wrote:

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 Heinrich

My answers to the questions above:

15 years

Dedicated to obsessive 

152 species

Wood Thrush, Yellow-throated Warbler, N Cardinal, Common Redpoll, Bohemian Waxwing

Watching 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'

--

Thomas Heinrich
Boulder, CO
TEHei...@gmail.com
www.pbase.com/birdercellist

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