On my morning hike with dog this day I heard, at a distance, a warbler’s song I’d never heard before. I felt sure it was a warbler from my years of listening to birds of all kinds: Warblers make sounds from a certain set that other birds don’t seem to have access to. This one sang a series of individual buzzy notes varying in number by one or two. I wondered what its name was.
As we headed down a deer trail in the general direction of the song, it began to fade as the bird moved quickly away and up Coyote Canyon. I figured I’d missed my chance. But up the canyon a ways, I heard again this distinctive song, much nearer, and began to track its source. Took a while, but I finally found it: a Black-throated Gray Warbler.
I’ve heard the voices of many black-throated grays, and all but one sang quite similar buzzy songs—much unlike this bird. (The outlier sang a different, buzzy jumble of notes whose order I can’t remember.) In fact, while chasing the singer of today’s mystery song, I even wondered aloud at one point: “Could it be a black-throated gray?”
But despite the fact that I’d seen the bird—that it wasn’t some strange new species—it was a thrill to add a new bit of information to my meager knowledge of the wondrous Great Outdoors.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:28 a.m. (8:28 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Lazuli Bunting 2. Black-headed Grosbeak (v) 3. Black-capped Chickadee 4. Song Sparrow* (v) 5. Black-chinned Hummingbird 6. Warbling Vireo 7. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 8. American Robin* 9. Spotted Towhee 10. Western Tanager 11. House Finch** 12. Rock Pigeon 13. Mourning Dove 14. Pine Siskin 15. Chipping Sparrow 16. Cooper’s Hawk 17. Black-throated Gray Warbler 18. Orange-crowned Warbler (v) 19. Black-billed Magpie* 20. California Quail* (v) 21. Lesser Goldfinch** (v)
Elsewhere
22. European Starling 23. Eurasian Collared-dove
Mammals
Rock Squirrel
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
Cool in the morning, warm in the afternoon. We hiked in morning under a cloudless sky, dog and I, and the sun warmed us up nicely. Few other humans or dogs, but quite a few good birds—e.g., a female Western Tanager.
But most noteworthy might’ve been three raptors: one of the resident Cooper’s Hawks, a pair of Golden Eagles perched high on the ridge (first eagles in a while), and, on our return, a lone soaring Red-Tailed Hawk.
(Lots of little hummingbirds, too.)
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:28 a.m. (8:28 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
Much unlike yesterday’s lowery overcast, this morning’s sky had no clouds in it, and the air carried quite a chill. Still fun to watch the doings of the wild bird life—especially, this morning, the Black-chinned Hummingbirds.
Broad-tails are also nesting around here somewhere, but it’s the black-chinneds that are zipping around everywhere above the scrubby surrounds. I’ve learned the peculiar hum their wings make as they zip by, as well as the fluty sounds those wings can emit when they’re doing their “U” display—zip up, pause zip down and up, pause, back and forth in the exaggerated shape of the alphabets twenty-first letter.
Today, I watched this display in minature, as a black-chinned made little declarative U’s in front of clump of sagebrush. I spied another hummer within the slump—rival? potential mate?—as the U-maker decided to perch for a bit.
That’s when I took this picture.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:11 a.m. (8:11 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
