I have two daily dates with individual birds these days. First is the Downy Woodpecker I’ve been meeting nearly every day for weeks. It’s a male (who replaced the female I had been dating), and I hear him rapping gently in the burnt patch. More than once I’ve seen him pull fat yellow grubs from the trunks of the scorched scrub oaks. He lets us come near, Jack and me.
I’ve been meeting nearly every day for weeks. It’s a male (who replaced the female I had been dating), and I hear him rapping gently in the burnt patch. More than once I’ve seen him pull fat yellow grubs from the trunks of the scorched scrub oaks. He lets us come near, Jack and me.
The second—for the past five days, at least—is a particular Townsend’s Solitaire. A least I assume it’s the same bird, as I’ve found it in the same stretch of the Coyote Canyon trail. Today, for the first time, I didn’t see it, but I hard its distinctive territorial call (a single musical note, repeated about once every two seconds).
It’s a thing you get to do when you hike the same patch every day for months (and years): you get to know not only the landscape, but its occupants—and even its individual occupants—rather well.
Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 8:35 a.m. (MST), I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
1. House Finch* (v)
2. Black-capped Chickadee**
3. Song Sparrow (v)
4. Spotted Towhee**
5. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay
6. Rock Pigeon
7. Pine Siskin (v)
8. Downy Woodpecker
9. Northern Flicker (v)
10. Dark-eyed Junco
11. Townsend’s Solitaire (v)
12. Lesser Goldfinch (v)
Elsewhere
13. Black-billed Magpie
Mammals
Red Squirrel
(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere
Tags: black-billed magpie, black-capped chickadee, dark-eyed junco, downy woodpecker, house finch, lesser goldfinch, northern flicker, pine siskin, red squirrel, rock pigeon, song sparrow, spotted towhee, Townsend’s solitaire, Woodhouse’s scrub jay
