Cloudy was the forecast. And cloudy it was first thing, but the sun came in and out as Captain Jack and I headed up the trail. The usual winter birds, a few deer—and a handsome bull elk waaay up the mountainside.

Then came this story of a solitaire.

We’d finished with the gulch and were headed back to the main trail and our descent, when it occurred to me that the faint, regular whistle I’d been hearing was the call of a Townsend’s Solitaire. (Don’t know why it took so long to hit me, but we’d climbed up nearly the entire opposite bank of the elk before I recognized the call behind us.

Welp, around I turned, and we galloped together back down the snowy switchback and up the far side again—where I managed a distant photo of the lovely plain gray bird.

We birders are an odd lot.

Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 9:45 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up the mountain.

1. Black-billed Magpie*
2. Song Sparrow* (v)
3. Black-capped Chickadee (v)
4. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay* (v)
5. House Finch*
6. Northern Flicker**
7. Townsend’s Solitaire
8. Dark-eyed Junco

Elsewhere

9. American Robin
10. Lesser Goldfinch
11. Eurasian Collared Dove (v)

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