AMB Requirement #12: Participate in at least one Christmas bird count........

.....and at least one Fall or Spring Count.

Well, I had such a grand time on my Fall Count:  I knew that I wanted to do at least one (and probably more than one) Christmas Count.

So I did three.

Which, if you're not a birder, might seem like a lot.

But the birders know: it's just a drop in the bucket.  This stuff is addictive.  

Why?  I wish I could tell you.  Maybe because everyone is so focused on seeing every single bird possible that each outing turns into a bird-a-palooza.  Maybe because the great birders turn out for the events in droves, and I'm finding that the best way to learn is by hanging out with the great birders.  Maybe because it's a pretty damn fine excuse to dispense with all the holiday hoopla and commercialization and just get out there and enjoy nature.

Or maybe it's just because of the birds.

My first Christmas bird count is at the start of the CBC (that's "Christmas Bird Count") season, on December 14.  I responded to a query that Doug Kibbe sent out, asking for volunteers for CBCs that he was leading.  I thought the Pueblo count on 12/14 sounded like fun, so I volunteered.  He said, great.  Cool!

Then he said, we need to meet at Castle Rock at 5:something on Saturday morning.

I thought, Oh Crap.

But I couldn't gracefully get out of the thing, so there I was, setting my alarm clock for 4 a.m. (which, in case you haven't been up at 4 a.m. lately, is dark, dark, dark), and heading south.  I met Doug and Sue, another fool - er, um, I mean volunteer - in the parking lot of Lowes.  I pulled in first, then a car pulled up, and I thought, great, we're all here at the same time.  But no.  It was somebody else.  Then somebody else, and somebody else.  At first I thought hunters, but nobody was really outfitted for hunting.  Then I got scared and thought "drug deal".  But pretty soon - within minutes, actually - there were too many people to be a drug deal.  Then - duh - I realized that it was the early crew showing up for work at Lowes.  All this in a few minutes.  Still, I was relieved when Doug and Sue arrived.  Whew.  Time to go see some birds.

And the birding was fabulous.  We covered the Pueblo State Wildlife Area, where the only remaining scariness was the presence of duck hunters (and the fact that at least one wanted to impress us and fired off a number of shots, too close for this reporter's comfort).  

The thing that had attracted me to Pueblo - the fact that the area is just far enough south to have different habitat and different birds - paid off in three new life birds:  Northern Shrike, Juniper Titmouse, and Thayer's Gull.

Sadly, I do not get usable photos of any.

But I do get nice views of a Ferruginous Hawk 

and a Rough-legged Hawk

I also get some nice looks at "year birds" (birds I have seen before, but not yet this year), like Canyon Towhee and Golden Eagle.  So by day's end, I'm thrilled with our count, even if it's not a super photography day.

My second Christmas Count is post-Florida, post-Christmas, but decidedly cold Christmas-like weather:  January 1.  I've chosen to be a part of a team led by Marilyn Rhodes and Bob Santagelo here in the heart of Denver, where I live.

What I didn't count on - what nobody really counted on - was the snow.

We all (a good-sized group - maybe 20 or 24 to start) meet up at Denver Botanic Gardens to start at 8 a.m.  That seems eminently reasonable, given that it's New Year's Day.  But as we gather, it starts to snow.  And then it snows some more.  And it just won't stop.  Brrrrr.

People tell me that the Botanic Gardens are usually a good birding spot. But maybe not so much in the snow.  We go next-door to Cheesman Park, which might be dead, too, if not for this gorgeous juvenile Cooper's Hawk that someone in our group spots right off the bat:

(Here's an AMB tip:  we know it's a juvenile because of the striping.  Adults are barred - in other words, the strips are horizontal.  On juvies, the striping is vertical.)  Unfortunately, that's one of the few good looks at birds that we get all day. Later, we'll pick up a few ducks at Washington Park:

Common Mergansers
You can tell the female is a Common by the white chin/neck - if the males (a dead giveaway) were not right there.

And a few other species:

Crow, with Fish;  why wouldn't this be a Fish Crow?  After all, I saw lots of Fish Crows last week in Florida.

My CBC teammates will only let me count this as an American Crow, not a Fish Crow.

And I'm willing to accept that not everybody loves gulls, but, really, on a day that is mostly cloudy and cold and snowy, when we get a moment of blue sky and sun, who can argue with this Ring-billed Gulls taking top billing?

In case you want to play "name that bird" at home, note the yellow legs, ringed-bill (okay, that's kind of cheating), and light eye of this bird.  It will at least steer you along the right path to a gull ID.

Finally, as if two CBCs are not enough, in addition to my week in Florida, where the only thing I did was bird (well, and maybe eat and sleep) (on further reflection, nope, pretty much just birded, eating and sleeping were tough to come by), I signed up for yet another bird count on Sunday, January 5.  It seemed like a good idea when I signed up, but then - after making the commitment - I looked at the forecast.

Oh dear.  What have I done?

It's gotten frigid in Colorado again, and this count - the Barr Lake Count - is out northeast of Denver, where urban ends and plains begin.  That means cold, snow, cold, snow, wind.

I think about just not showing up, but since I've already had one cold-weather-dropout in the AMB program in early December, that feels wrong.  And when I check the temp when I get up on count day, it's a balmy 12 degrees at my place.  That's actually 20 degrees warmer than it was on the AMB test that I skipped.  What's a girl to do but to put on the ski clothes I planned to wear that day (6 layers on top;  I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not sure it's enough), and head north and east?

Once again, I'm on Doug Kibbe's team, and that feels pretty comfortable to me;  he's a fun guy.  I'll admit to hanging back when Doug asks for volunteers to do the walking part of our territory.  Normally, I'd be first in line for getting outside and walking rather than driving.  But when it's barely ten degrees (yeah, it's a bit colder out here than at home) with the wind whipping and snow falling, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a wimp, and I let some of my (much-admired) teammates take that route.  That means that I'm teamed up with Doug and Judy (yep, that's right) for the driving part of this count.

We leave the Stone House at Barr Lake, and I'm expecting a dead day.  But oh, holy moses, am I wrong.  To start out with, we get a Rough-legged Hawk.  Doug makes me ID the bird, in the distance, and I have a memory of him noting - on the Pueblo count - that Rough-legged Hawks are the only raptors that hover.  Thank heavens I've remembered that fact.  Then we happen upon a field that has some black birds.  A flock of black birds.  In fact, a huge flock of black birds - that we determine to be Red-winged Blackbirds, as the entire flock - we estimate it at 2500 birds - flies over our vehicle.  Oh wow.

And that's pretty much the way the day goes:  raptors and large flocks of birds.  We see three Bald Eagles, two Great Horned Owls (one flies right over my head!), a couple of Northern Harriers and a couple of American Kestrels, twelve Red-tailed Hawks, and eight Rough-legged Hawks, including one dark-morph.  We see a flock of 600 or so Horned Larks;  I've never seen anything like that, and the bonus is that we see a couple of Lapland Longspurs in the mix.  We see - mixed in a large flock of Canada and Cackling Geese - a single Great White-fronted Goose.  We see plenty of American Robins and Blue Jays and a smattering of other ducks and small birds.

Of course, the photo ops are incredible, but I've left my camera at home, thinking that the weather isn't suitable for photography.  Chalk one up for the Boy Scouts and Always-be-prepared.

When we wrap up the morning's birding back at the Stone House, we run into a few of my AMB classmates and friends, and we have friendly exchanges about what we've seen in the morning.  I'm actually sad that I have to leave for other commitments now;  who knows what birds are out there, waiting for me to find them.   As I drive off, away from all the birding activity, I wonder if maybe - just maybe - there isn't another CBC left that I can take part in.  After all, it's really only early January.  Surely there are more counts to do?