Seems everywhere you look these days, you’ll see a bird carrying a tasty morsel. That is, assuming you’re paying attention to birds.
They’re laying low these days, what with all the begging fledglings, still learning to fend for themselves. It won’t take long, but in the meantime, there are bugs to catch.
Notably, on this morning’s hike with dog, we spied numerous buntings trying to keep track of their youngsters. Also towhees (which have gone even quieter). Back home this afternoon, I stopped to watch a female house sparrow methodically tear the legs off a grasshopper on the street out front. Even the wild hummingbirds seem to be catching tiny flies in the shade, it seems.
(That’s one of several reasons I love insects: bird food.)
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:01 a.m. (8:01 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
One nice thing about hiking the same patch every day is getting to know the wildlife well—the individual birds, bird families, where they hang out, their calls, their habits. As rewarding, arguably, are the surprises.
Today’s surprises were: 1) a Eurasian Collared-dove perched on a wire usually occupied by a Mouning dove; 2) a cottontail far afield from where we usually encounter them, dog and I; 3) a random tanager showing up weeks after my last sighting.
Surprises are fun. And not uncommonly experience by the daily birder. (I’m tellin’ ya, birding improves your life.)
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 6:36 a.m. (7:36 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
1. Lazuli Bunting 2. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay (v) 3. Lesser Goldfinch** 4. Black-capped Chickadee (v) 5. House Finch* 6. Eurasian Collared-dove 7. Black-chinned Hummingbird 8. Hawk (sp.) 9. Mourning Dove 10. Black-headed Grosbeak 11. Rock Pigeon 12. Spotted Towhee 13. Black-billed Magpie** 14. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 15. Western Tanager 16. American Robin
Elsewhere
17. House Sparrow 18. California Quail
Mammals
Red Squirrel Rock Squirrel Mountain Cottontail
(v) Voice only *Also elsewhere **Voice only elsewhere
The snow on the trails was mostly well-packed when dog and I started up the switchback this morning. By the time we reached the bluff, I had seven birds on my list. Not much up the in the benches, though—except for Black-billed Magpies. In fact, the most visible critters up there were magpies and a half-dozen or so deer.
Black-billed Magpie.
We were the only human and canine for all of it. Then, as we stopped by the bluff again, I spied a young Sharp-shinned Hawk on the hawk snag.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 9:07 a.m. (MST), I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
