Everything's coming up Rosy (Finches, that is)

Oh dear.  Where were we?

At last meeting, we were back in January, learning all about gulls.........but maybe not seeing so many on our gull field trip.

Then our next field trip came around, and oh my.  Oh. My.

It was all Rosy-Finches.  And unlike the gull trip where we didn't see many gulls, on the Rosy-Finch trip we saw Rosy-Finches.  Oh yes we did.

Tons of Rosy-Finches.

And that was a good thing, because I'd been kind of crazy to see Rosy-Finches this winter.

In fact, I was so crazy to see Rosy-Finches that - well before the Rosy-Finch AMB Field Trip - I made some forays into the mountains on my own.

But how can a story of Rosy-Finches in Colorado not start out with a ski day at Keystone and a stop at the feeder there?  As we got off the lift, I told my ski buddy that I wanted to check out the birds at the feeder.  "Oh, it's just some sparrows", said the unwitting and non-birding buddy.  So I skied him over to the feeder (so conveniently right on trail this year, instead of behind the patrol shack), and explained that we were seeing all three varieties of Rosy-Finches:  Brown-capped and Gray-crowned and Black.  I was able to point out the birds, but somehow I had neglected to bring a real camera with me, so it remains an undocumented sighting.

Then on a sunny Sunday morning, I made my way to the much vaunted Fawn Brook Inn in Allenspark to see if I might score a Rosy-Finch or two there.  

The feeders at the inn (God bless the owners who keep the feeders stocked in the winter, even if the inn isn't open) made a veritable oasis for bird activity.  There were Evening Grosbeaks and House Finches and chickadees (both Mountain and Black-capped) and Pine Siskins and both Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and Steller's Jays and nuthatches and Dark-eyed Juncos by the score and all kinds of birds partaking of the goodness there.  A flock of crows circled overhead, and a Common Raven flew in and showed them who was boss.

Finally, a Rosy-Finch showed up.  Oh, and how well worth the wait.

The bird started on the feeder and hopped down on the snow, completely oblivious to me, sitting there in the parking lot, with my car as a blind.

Have I said God Bless the Fawn Brook Inn?

On another morning, I found myself at Red Rocks Park, watching the feeders at the Trading Post.  I was there solo, and there were other birders there, mostly newbies (which is still how I view myself, FWIW).  They told me that they'd seen a candidate for a Rosy-Finch, but they were not sure.  Maybe I could help find it again?  This was a high order, given that I have barely any experience with the birds.  But you have to try.  What would you be if you didn't try?  

And a Rosy-Finch showed up, in the snow.  Sometimes, magic happens.

The next time I went out looking for Rosy-Finches was with my birding foursome.  This is a group of birders who have taken me under their wing (so to speak, and God bless them everyone), and we've become a regular birding group.  We started out at Red Rocks, where, on this morning, there were no Rosy-Finches, just some very cooperative Western Scrub-Jays.

  So we left Red Rocks, and went high up on Squaw Pass, where we found some Mountain Chickadees........

.....and distant Rosy-Finches on feeders.  But but it was snowing hard, and the birds were a long way away, and very high in the sky, and there were no photo opportunities.  It takes a certain kind of person to bird in this weather.......in the mountains.......in the snow.......trying to find the avian life way up high.......

Finally the AMB class had a field trip to once again try for the Rosy-Finches.  We started at Red Rocks again, and then visited feeders at two mountain homes, and voila!  Rosy-Finches at both!  Our first stop, the place on Conifer Mountain, was teeming as a flock of Rosies flew in and started to feed.  I studied the birds with my bins, and was just thinking about taking some photos when a Sharp-shinned Hawk arrived and spoiled the party.

So we headed higher - back over to the feeders on Squaw Pass.  And it turned into Rosy-palooza.  We had all three species of Rosies here, and oh what a huge flock!  We were a long way from the feeders, and the Rosies were skittish;  they did not present great photo opps, but my oh my, the behavior and the flocking and the sheer volume of birds.  We figured there were at least 800 finches in the air.  Quite an amazing sight.

Not a great photo but look closely at the density of the Rosies - there are at least 60 in this small section of the tree.

My oh my oh my.  Everything is indeed coming up Rosy.

AMB Field Trip: The Gull Trip (Pueblo Reservoir)

A few days after our gull lecture, we head down south early (WAY too early for this weary body) in search of gulls on Pueblo Reservoir.  I luck into riding with the trip leaders, which is something that frequently happens to me.  Really, it's luck.  It's not like I leap into the leader's car as soon as the offer is made.  (Don't believe the people who say otherwise.)

But it sure is nice.  I see it as a chance to have a personal birding guide, and this strategy - er, um, I mean, continued stroke of good fortune - has given me lots of personal birding guiding.

In fact, the guiding starts early on this morning.  As we drive between Colorado Springs and Pueblo, Nick Komar - our gull expert and trip leader - points out lots and lots of gulls flying in the sky.  Cool!  This is a great sign that we'll see lots of gulls on this trip.

But first, before heading to the gulls, we stop by a little pond that is filled with waterfowl - but almost no gulls.  That's okay.  I've never seen so many Canvasbacks in one place.  I'm so excited by that that I completely forget to take any photos.  

Scaled Quail

We hang out at the pond for a little while, then head to a private home in west Pueblo.  To be truthful, since I'm not driving, I don't really pay close attention to the logistical details.  So we drive up to this house, and - immediately! - see a bunch of Scaled Quail.  Life bird!  I'm so excited that I can barely contain myself.  Not so much because this is a life bird, but rather because they are so gosh-darned cute.  Who can see one of these birds and not fall in love?

But we've been told - apparently - that we need to stay in our cars.  So I'm trying to get photos from the wrong side of the back seat of a car;  photos of fast moving (if not terribly small, thank heavens for small favors) birds that don't like to hang out in the open.  My car mates have moved on to observing Goldfinches (Lesser, they determine) on the feeders, but I'm a bit obsessed with the quail.  My backseat mate is Hugh Kingery, who also happens to be the godfather of the entire Audubon education program, including both the Beginning Birding Class (which I took several times) and this AMB program.  Now, Hugh has had hips replaced, so you would not expect him to offer - as he does - to swap seats with me (remember, we've been told *not* to get out of the car) so I can get a better chance of a photo of the quail.  We're like teenagers at a Chinese Fire Drill, rearranging ourselves in the back seat.  I love this moment.  In fact, it's one of my favorite moments thus far in the AMB program, just because it's fun and it shows the true spirit of a great teacher, doing gymnastics in the car just to let me get a better view.

Sadly, the effort is really a bust.  The quail don't cooperate.  Sigh.

Curve-billed Thrasher

But wait!  There's more opportunity!  After a little while, people start getting out of cars.  I've thought we were restricted to cars, but now the homeowner, Margie, is coming out of her house, and we're being directed to visit her back yard.  

And.  Oh.  My.  It's a birder's nirvana.

The first cool thing is a Curve-billed Thrasher, sitting on a shrub, singing.  I try to get a good shot, and get a barely recognizable one before the bird flies.  But it turns out that it doesn't matter.  We end up spending a bunch of time in this bird haven, and eventually the birds ignore us and start doing their everyday bird thing.  That means that the quail - oh, so many of them, and so cute! - run rampant on the fringes of the yard.  A White-winged Dove flies out of the yard, but we find it through binocs on the roof of a neighbor's house.  There are all kinds of birds around.

Curve-billed Thrasher, still singing

But the coolest birds around are the Thrashers that decide we're not a threat, and they start singing.  And singing.  And singing.  A few of us with cameras make our way up to the thrashers, and they don't seem to mind at all.  What a fabulous experience:  being serenaded by these really cool birds.

Finally, it's time to leave, since our target birds - the gulls?  anyone remember that this is a trip to see gulls? - are theoretically out at Pueblo Reservoir.

We stop at the marina, and there are no gulls.  None.  Well, maybe a Ring-billed Gull or two, but not the gulls we've come to see: not by volume or by variety.

Parking lot Canyon Towhee

I've been alerted that we might see Canyon Towhees here, but the word is that they are "parking lot" birds, so I'm expecting parking lot quality photos.  And the Towhees do not disappoint:  that's what I get, parking lot photos. But still, it's a treat to see them since they don't occur further north, in my home birding arena.

But then as we all head back to cars to continue our search for gulls on the rez, two of our group split off, following a sound that they've heard.  This is the most common danger in a field trip:  that people go off in another direction, chasing a bird.  In today's case, the guys don't know *what* they're hearing it until we accidentally flush the bird, and it sits in a shrub right in front of us for an instant.  Before I even know what the bird is, I have my camera up, snapping just one photo before the bird flies.  What luck:  a non-parking-lot-quality Canyon Towhee!

Canyon Towhee

The rest of the day spent around the reservoir brings us lots of variety of birds.  We have raptors (Bald Eagles and Red-tailed Hawks) and ducks and sparrows and other waterfowl.  We have a (rare-for-here) Red-throated Loon, swimming way off in the distance in the company of a Common Loon.  Quite a treat, and another lifer for me.

Belted Kingfisher

But the gulls (remember, this is a gull trip?), oh where are the gulls?  Finally, in mid to late afternoon, they start arriving, and we find a large flock of them across the reservoir, a place we've already visited today.  There's only one thing to do:  drive back over to get a better look.  Our gull expert and leader spots a Mew Gull among this flock that is otherwise all Ring-billed Gulls.  Life bird #3 for the day!  But try as we may to get good looks and good photos of the thing, the bird stays hidden behind a phalanx of Ring-billed Gulls.  The bird gods have smiled on me enough for one day, it seems (three life birds!);  I'll have to wait until another day to photograph this gull.

Ring-billed Gull - 1st Year

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gulls with a Mew Gull hiding somewhere in the background

AMB Class #11: Gulls (really, it's not all that boring, I promise)

It's inevitable that we'll have a unit on gulls.  After all, they are everywhere you look.  Parking lots, bodies of water, flying overhead.  They sit in large groups, in long line-ups, and have an unmistakable shape and wing-beat when overhead.  They are in songs (Jackson Browne, in Sky Blue and Black, "of the seagulls circling the sand") and books (oh, those days of Jonathan Livingston Seagull) and logos around the globe.  They are, perhaps, the most ubiquitous of birds.

Front Range of Colorado,
from Aurora Reservoir

So why, then, do most birders cringe when they hear of gulls?  Or to say, quoting an expert birding friend, "I don't do gulls"?

Never mind all that.  Gulls are pulling me in.  I've spent some time this winter staring at thousands of gulls at Aurora Reservoir, searching - unsuccessfully - for a couple of rock stars of the gull world in Colorado:  a Slaty-backed Gull and an Iceland Gull.  Did I mention "unsuccessful"?  On the positive side, I've seen a few Lesser- and Greater Black-backed Gulls, along with the more plentiful - in Colorado, anyway, Herring and Thayer's and California.  It goes without saying that I've seen lots of Ring-billed Gulls, the default gull in our state.

Aurora Reservoir
January 2014

Ring-billed Gull
Denver, CO

So I enjoy the reading assignments on the gull unit.  And yes, dear AMB mentors, some of us do read the optional readings, especially the great stuff in one of my favorite resources, "Identify Yourself".  Bill Thompson III, the author of this delightful tome, takes gull ID to its simplest.  He says that there are just two things you need to know about gulls.  First, there are only three basic kinds of gulls:  large, medium, and small.  Second, gulls all start out brown and end up gray or black and white.

Wow.  That makes it pretty simple.  Okay, maybe it's not that simple, but it makes for a nice framework for studying these birds.  

Herring Gull
Denver City Park 2012

Our gull expert and guest lecturer on the topic chooses a different way of distinguishing gulls:  Nick Komar presents profiles of gulls from the most common in Colorado to the least.  Our four most common gulls are the Ring-billed, Herring, California, and Franklin's.  

Herring Gull (Juvenile, or I should say 1st or 2nd Cycle, but I'm still figuring that out.  Suffice to say:  not adult)
Florida 2011

California Gull
Point Reyes National Seashore (CA) 2013

Franklin's Gull
Denver City Park 2013

Franklin's Gulls
Nebraska 2012

Uncommon but expected in Colorado are Bonaparte's, Lesser Black-backed, Thayer's, and Glaucous.  

Bonaparte's Gulls - with bubblegum pink legs and heads tucked
Chatfield State Park 2012

Rare but regular:  Black-legged Kittiwake, Little, Sabine's, Mew, and Great Black-backed.  Lucky for me, I saw at least one of these in Alaska a few years back, and was also lucky to have somebody ID it for me at the time, when I had even less of a clue about birds - and gulls, specifically - than I do now.

Black-legged Kittiwake
Kenai Fjords, AK 2011

Then follow the very rare in Colorado (Laughing, Iceland, Glaucous-winged, and Western), and the vagrants (Ross's, Ivory, Black-headed, and Slaty-backed).  Now, I may not have seen all of these birds in Colorado, but, again, my travels have served well for at least a few species:

Laughing Gull
New Orleans, LA 2012

Laughing Gull 1st or 2nd cycle
New Orleans, LA 2012

Laughing Gull ( adult)
Florida 2011

Glaucous-winged Gull
Kenai Fjords, AK 2012

Western Gull
Point Reyes National Seashore 2013

Western Gull (1st or 2nd cycle)
Point Reyes National Seashore 2013

Nick gives us details of the various gulls, and the field marks, and all manner and kind of other information on the different species.  As happens quite frequently in these classes, my brain fills up quickly, and I'm left just completely overwhelmed.  I figure that I'll have to rely on notes and books, and study at a later date.

Of course, when the later date arrives, I've forgotten far too much of what I've learned, and so, as I do so frequently in similar cases, I turn to my photos for a review.  I'm kind of amazed and overwhelmed that in such a short time birding, I've captured images of so many different gulls......and the odd and wondrous thing is that - at the time - I had no idea how remarkable some of these birds were.

Gray-headed Gull
South Africa 2013

Lava Gull
Galapagos 2013

Swallow-tailed Gull
Galapagos 2013

AMB Requirement #2: Identify and list at least 200 bird species in Colorado

Okay, I'll admit, I'm greedy.

This requirement would, in the grand scheme of things, be no big deal.  For me or for anyone else in the AMB program.  After all, with the amount of field trips and all the expert eyes looking for birds, you'd have to just plain not be paying attention - or perhaps the apocalypse would come - to not reach 200 bird species during the year we're in the program.

I mean, I came into the program with well over 200 species in Colorado.  I suspect most - if not all - of my classmates were in the same boat.  But as I prepared for the program, I set a goal to reach 200 species while *in* the program.  It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Then......as things got rolling and I was racking up the species, I decided I wanted to reach that 200 mark by December 31.  Something about wanting to check things off,  complete the requirements.

I got close, but no cigar.  At the end of 2013, I had 191 species.

That was okay. It just meant that in 2014, I was really itching to get to 200.

And so it went.  I got some new gulls early in the month (Glaucous and Great Black-backed).  On our last class field trip, I got a White-winged Scoter:  a fine bird and a good look at it.  A little more than a week ago, I got a Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch.  It was a great bird, but from a long ways away, and on a feeder, and on a snowy and windy day, and there were no great photos.

And I was still a bird away.

On January 13th, we had a class on gulls.  Appropriately enough, I went to Chatfield State Park before class (class is in the Audubon center at Chatfield), and saw three California Gulls on one of the not-completely-frozen quarry ponds there.  Bird #200!

But then I got home and checked my records.  Dang.  I already had this bird during the AMB timeframe, back in the fall.

So on January 14th, I followed my instinct (and instructions from many more skilled birders who have come before me) and went again in search of #200.  It turns out that #200 is a bird I've seen before - just not in the AMB program.  And it took some walking and looking and searching, which makes it rewarding.  And - to dramatize things a bit - I had a perfect shot lined up of the female of this species, and it was a brilliant look (and a bit more difficult to ID).  But then, a woman on the other side of the river - the South Platte, on the north side of Denver - let her four dogs loose on the sandbars, and my birds all flew.

Lucky for me, I got this one shot before they were all gone.  I present my 200th Colorado bird in the AMB program:  a beautiful male Barrow's Goldeneye.

Thankfully, I'm done with this requirement.  Unless, of course, some other crazy thing enters my mind, like trying to see exactly how many Colorado birds I can see during the class year.  Not that I'm competitive or anything.  Hmmm.  I wonder if they have records of most birds seen during an AMB year?

AMB Field Trip #10: Raptors & the Great (Horned) Owl Controversy

A few days after our raptor lecture, our class reassembles for a raptor field trip, starting at Barr Lake State Park.  The weather forecast has been for decent temps, but with huge winds - something we've had all too much of already this month - out on the plains.  But happily for all of us, the huge winds do not materialize.  It is, in fact, a perfect Colorado bluebird day.

But, of course, there are no bluebirds today:  it's January!  And our target is raptors, along with anything else we might come upon out on the prairie.  

As if on cue, as we're assembling at the nature center at Barr Lake, Bald Eagles - one at a time, either five or six, depending on how lucky you are - do a flyby overhead.

Bald Eagle

That's the good news, and perhaps one of the least contested moments of the day.  The truth is, mere moments after we've started on our journey out of the park, we spy a raptor sitting in a tree on the shore of the lake.  The bird is too far away to see clearly without a scope, but it flies before we can get a scope on it.  Most of the experts in the group call it a Ferruginous Hawk, which seems pretty darn cool, since it's still a new and exciting bird for me.  But one of my carpool mates insists that it's simply a Red-tailed Hawk - and won't be convinced otherwise - and the controversies of the day begin.  Who knew that something like birding - a thing that outsiders regard as a passive hobby - could lead to ferocious competition?

Happily, our next several birds are ones we reach agreement on more easily.  There's a hawk that everyone agrees is a Ferruginous.  By the way, "Ferruginous" comes from the Latin ferrigineus, resembling iron rust in color;  this bird does not disappoint.

Ferruginous Hawk

And then there are multiple birds that everyone agrees are Rough-legged Hawks.  Another factoid:  Ferruginous and Rough-legged Hawks were originally considered one species.  Both have feathers all the way down their legs to their toes (Golden Eagles are the only other raptors to also have feathered tarsi - that's birdspeak for a bird's feet).

Rough-legged Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

There's a Great Horned Owl in a tree in the distance that only a few of us see.  There are tons of Red-winged Blackbirds (admittedly, not raptors) in trees along the way.  There are hundreds of Horned Larks and Meadowlarks gracing the side of the road.

Rough-legged Hawk

So it's an incredibly birdy day, and that is excellent news.  But we also have a huge group today, and huge groups are unwieldy, especially when split into 6 cars, all stopping along the side of mostly 2-lane roads with little in the way of legal pull-offs.  It's an exercise that requires coordination, and today, for reasons unfathomable to me, most of the cars are not participating in the walkie-talkie sharing of information that's really necessary to make these trips the best they can be.

I'm lucky to be riding with one of the trip leaders: Joe Roller, a Denver birder who has been doing this stuff since he was a boy.  The other leaders are Doug Kibbe and Mackenzie Goldthwaite.  Kez is one of the mentors in the program, and Doug is one of the guest lecturers/trip leaders.  The good news is that both Joe and Doug keep up a steady stream of shared information.  One of the things I love best about Joe is that even though he knows so very much about birds, he's a realist, and reminds us over and over that there are just some birds that you will never see well enough to identify.  

By late morning we're on rural roads that are on the back side of DIA (Denver International Airport).  We avail ourselves of roadside facilities (ahem, perhaps not really intended for public use, but open and clean and a godsend), and use the time to stretch legs and watch Horned Larks in the open fields next to us.

Horned Lark

One of our crew has a scope set up on a bird in the air, and then there's a flurry of excitement as a positive ID is made:  it's a large bird, not a raptor, though.  It's a Sandhill Crane!  Totally unexpected and out of place in Denver in January.  We're excited to watch it, but it fills me with uneasiness.  Tina - who was my mentor for the first several months of the program - once offered up her views on the out-of-place birds that birders get excited about chasing.  She said, "you know, these birds will all most likely die, as they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Birders love to see them, but it's not usually a good thing for the birds". 

Sand Hill Crane

Sand Hill Crane

I watch this bird as it flies in circles - and it does fly in circles, as you can see from the photos - and worry that it is lost and can't find it's way in the world.  Add to that the fact that it's flying in the DIA area, and I worry that it will have an unintended encounter with a plane.  Everyone else in my class is dancing with joy and calling this the "bird of the day";  I'm silently crying and praying for this creature's safe passage.

Down the road a bit, we have our biggest controversy of the day.  In a copse of large, barren cottonwoods at a 90-degree turn in the road, one of our group spies a Great Horned Owl.  

First owl, everyone agrees is a Great Horned Owl
(photo credit & copyright:  G. Hart)

We all stop to look at it, and then someone discovers another owl.  When I see it, I think "how cool - a Long-eared Owl!"  But, of course, I know nothing about owls, really, and soon I'm being schooled by others.  This is also a Great Horned.  But then, maybe no.  One of the experts says it's Long-eared.  Others say Great Horned.  I start to think perhaps I should take some photos - foolishly, I've left my camera in the car just now - and then the bird in question flies away.  Thankfully, others in the group have photos to share.

The controversial owl
(photo credit & copyright:  Cynthia Madsen)

We'll find another owl in the distance when we get in our cars and turn the corner;  nobody is certain whether it's the controversial bird, but there is agreement that this is yet another Great Horned.  At the time, we end the moment as a house divided.  There is a small (and credible) force calling the bird Long-eared, and a larger contingent calling it Great Horned.  For me, it goes into my ebird list as "owl sp".  (For folks new to birdspeak, that means I've identified it as an owl, but the "sp" is short for species, and it indicates that I have not been able to identify the specific species.)

We cover a lot of ground on this field trip;  too much, perhaps, for such a large group.  But we encounter lots of fun birds, many new for the year.  Highlights of the rest of the day - as we cross from Adams and Denver Counties into Morgan and Weld - are a huge flock of Wild Turkeys assembled in a farm field, far off the road, and a smaller flock of Brewer's Blackbirds.  But that's after we've stopped for lunch at a rest stop along the way, enjoying the sunshine and gorgeous weather.  There are a few birds at the rest stop, ones we would expect there:  a few House Sparrows, an American Robin or two, and even a flyover by yet another adult Bald Eagle.  But as we leave our lunch stop, one more unexpected bird is foraging along the wayside.