Another cloudless day, with coolish temperatures early and hot temperatures late. (It’s a dry heat.) Lovely hike with dog—many bird species.

Lots of fledglings out there. Chippies and buntings and (at home) California Quail chicks. The funnest occurrence was when, as we were hiking a high deer trail, a Cooper’s Hawk abruptly entered the picture—zipping downhill, low above the slope, into a sagebrushy area maybe 150 yards away.

As we hurried down in that direction, my GoPro’s battery ran out, so I replaced that thinking I’d missed my chance—but no. The red-eyed bird posed for a bunch of photos and a video. Despite a general upset in the little bird population. I could find no evidence that it’d made a kill.

(Later, I got a lovely photo of a lovely female flicker with tiny black hearts on its breast.)

Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 8:30 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. Black-capped Chickadee
2. American Robin*
3. House Finch*
4. Lazuli Bunting
5. Chipping Sparrow
6. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
7. Black-chinned Hummingbird
8. Spotted Towhee
9. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay (v)
10. Black-headed Grosbeak (v)
11. Black-billed Magpie* (v)
12. Pine Siskin
13. Rock Pigeon*
14. Lesser Goldfinch** (v)
15. Broad-tailed Hummingbird (wing trill)
16. Warbling Vireo (v)
17. Cooper’s Hawk
18. Golden Eagle
19. Mourning Dove
20. Northern Flicker
21. Song Sparrow (v)
22. Red-tailed Hawk

Elsewhere

23. Eurasian collared Dove
24. California Quail
25. European Starling

Mammals

Rock Squirrel

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

Tags: American robin, black-billed magpie, black-capped chickadee, black-chinned hummingbird, black-headed grosbeak, blue-gray gnatcatcher, broad-tailed hummingbird, California quail, chipping sparrow, cooper's hawk, Eurasian collared dove, European starling, golden eagle, house finch, lazuli bunting, lesser goldfinch, mourning dove, northern flicker, red-tailed hawk, rock pigeon, rock squirrel, song sparrow, spotted towhee, warbling vireo, Woodhouse’s scrub jay, Woodhouse’s scrub-jay pine siskin

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2020 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Lists, Observations, Photo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.