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
What a morning. Twenty-one species, including a first-of-year Western Tanager (only a few minutes after I’d been lamenting not having seen one yet), a couple warblers (none yesterday), and a drop-in visit by a Turkey Vulture.
A lot of people think vultures are ugly, it seems—no doubt because they provide the noble service of cleaning up dead stuff all over the globe. I think they’re pretty handsome birds. Then again, I think all critters are handsome in their own way. Just please deliver me from being in the vicinity of a vulture that pukes. (I know from experience.)
It was a cooler day than yesterday, and more cool days to come. But pleasant. Truly springlike. Flowers blooming, pollinators pollinating, and ever on the periphery—wild birds.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:03 a.m. (8:03 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
Good and bad news this morning. The bad news first: Jack didn’t want to go. He’s had a couple episodes the past few days (stick lodged in throat, finally swallowed, and a missed jump into the truck after a hike, causing a minor fall), and he’s been a little lethargic since, so we have a vet appointment on Monday—although yesterday he was fine on the trails. Still, I figured he could use a day off (first since October 2019).
So although I thought about him the whole way, I ended up doing a ridge hike—a long, slow walk uphill a good ways, then downhill again, all the while observing a whole heap of migrating birds.
