A little warmer this morning, and cloudless. We were the first human and dog up the switchback, it seems, although before our return, we’d met up with a few later hikers. Meanwhile, we encountered assorted birds.

Quite a few of them, in fact—including the neighborhood solitaire for the first time in several days. Three finches, a couple sparrows, the usual corvids—twelve species in all.

Know how thirteen is called a “baker’s dozen”? Well, my list today totaled a birder’s dozen. ’Cause we don’t fudge.

Grandeur Peak Area List
At 8:49 MST, I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay**
2. Lesser Goldfinch**
3. Black-capped Chickadee (v)
4. Song Sparrow (v)
5. Rock Pigeon*
6. Black-billed Magpie*
7. House Finch**
8. Spotted Towhee (v)
9. Pine Siskin (v)
10. Dark-eyed Junco
11. Townsend’s Solitaire (v)
12. Northern Flicker* (v)

Elsewhere

13. House Sparrow (v)
14. European Starling

Mammals

Red Squirrel

(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere