Breezy, cool, mostly overcast to start, clearing later—and what a hike it would be. Tallied twenty-four varied species (including a random Mallard flyby).
Other birds of interest were a couple of flycatchers, a Brewer’s Sparrow, a little flock of swallows, a tanager. Several species stopped to let me take their photo.
Already looking forward to morning.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:11 a.m. (8:11 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Lazuli Bunting 2. Black-headed Grosbeak (v) 3. Rock Pigeon 4. Black-chinned Hummingbird 5. American Robin* 6. Spotted Towhee 7. Warbling Vireo 8. Western Wood-pewee 9. Mourning Dove 10. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay 11. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 12. House Finch** 13. Mallard 14. Rock Wren 15. Brewer’s Sparrow 16. Pine Siskin (v) 17. Chipping Sparrow 18. Black-capped Chickadee 19. Black-throated Gray Warbler (v) 20. Black-billed Magpie 21. Virginia’s Warbler 22. Violet-green Swallow 23. Western Tanager
Elsewhere
24. California Quail 25. European Starling 26. Song Sparrow
Mammals
Mountain Cottontail
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
Pretty quiet this calm, lovely morning up along the deer trails. Coolish still, and dry. I wonder each morning why it’s different from the morning before—and the morning before that. They’re all different, sometimes subtly so, and sometimes vastly.
Not nearly as many species today as in recent days. I imagine migration is diminishing apace. (Did hear one bird I couldn’t identify—and couldn’t track down.) Nests are active. Not nearly as much singing going on.
Each day is different, year round. Just as every season is different from the previous year’s. Makes me wonder. And any hike that makes me wonder is a good walk. (Not sure I’ve ever had a bad one.)
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:28 a.m. (8:28 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
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
