6 April 2026

Posts Tagged ‘house finch’

Surprises

Monday, January 24th, 2022
Lesser Goldfinch, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 24 January 2022.
Lesser Goldfinch.
Bald Eagle, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 24 January 2021.
Bald Eagle.

Warmer this morning, with a few more clouds—but basically sunny (outside of the shade). A nice early surprise was a singing Lesser Goldfinch, which actually posed for a pic. A later surprise was a big ol’ gang of deer (after I’d spied only a couple high on the ridge and figured, with the lack of snow they’d moved higher).

A nice late surprise was a Bald Eagle flyover—but even more surprising was the fact that, after a fellow hiker pointed out the bird, I dubbed it a Golden Eagle, only to find out when I looked at the photos that I was very wrong. Guess I’ll clean up that embarrassment later.

But I do like a little surprise or two.

Grandeur Peak Area List
At 09:15 MST, I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay (v)
2. House Finch** (v)
3. Black-billed Magpie**
4. Northern Flicker (v)
5. American Robin
6. Rock Pigeon*
7. Lesser Goldfinch
8. Black-capped Chickadee
9. Dark-eyed Junco
10. Bald Eagle

Elsewhere

11. House Sparrow (v)
12. Spotted Towhee

Mammals

Mule Deer
Red Squirrel

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

Clear Day

Sunday, January 23rd, 2022
Woodhouse’s scrub-jay, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 23 January 2021.
Woodhouse’s scrub-jay.

A tiny bit colder this morning than last. Also calmer and pretty much cloudless—unless you count the haze of particulates hovering over the valley. A decent selection of bird species, but only one posed for photos: a scrub-jay showing off a peanut.

Grandeur Peak Area List
At 09:20 MST, I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. House Finch** (v)
2. Black-billed Magpie (v)
3. Rock Pigeon*
4. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay
5. Lesser Goldfinch
6. Black-capped Chickadee
7. Dark-eyed Junco
8. Pine Siskin (v)
9. Northern Flicker (v)

Elsewhere

10. European Starling

Mammals

Mule Deer
Red Squirrel

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

Solitaire

Saturday, January 22nd, 2022
Townsend’s Solitaire, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 22 January 2022.
Townsend’s Solitaire.

Today would’ve been a rather unremarkable, chilly, clear, pleasant hike with Captain Jack, but then I heard the voice of a Townsend’s Solitaire.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a solitaire’s repeated one-note territorial call lately—a bird’s been calling down in the neighborhood for a month or more—but it was only the second I’d heard from up in the juniper barrens. The first (yesterday) sounded near enough to see, but I couldn’t find it. This morning’s bird was rather distant, down over the rise toward town from where we walked, but nowhere near as far away as the neighborhood bird. Just as I wondered aloud if it might be perched in a particular juniper that we pass daily down in that direction, it stopped calling.

I pretty much gave up at that point, but when we topped the rise and I could see the juniper, I couldn’t help training my binocs on the tree—and there it was.

It’s hard to describe how thrilled I felt at my soothsaying abilities. Then, as I began to take faraway photos of the bird, it flew. Straight in our direction it flew, only to perched atop a leafless tree quite a bit nearer. Again I trained my camera on the solitaire, and again it flew—to a treetop even nearer us. I focused again, and it flew again.

That’s when I took the photo you see here.

Grandeur Peak Area List
At 09:08 MST, I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. House Finch** (v)
2. Black-billed Magpie* (v)
3. Black-capped Chickadee
4. Rock Pigeon*
5. European Starling
6. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay (v)
7. Townsend’s Solitaire
8. Pine Siskin (v)

Mammals

Mule Deer
Red Squirrel

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

 
Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson



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