This morning’s hike was interesting. It started cool and quiet and breezy, but it ended warm and rather active. The usual suspects were active—buntings, finches, gnatcatchers, hummingbirds—and were joined by a random female Downy Woodpecker. One of the Cooper’s Hawks delivered a loud soliloquy, a Black-throated Gray Warbler dropped by, and a single robin showed up out of nowhere.
But the most interesting—or at least entertaining—activity occurred out the front window, in the yard and garden.
For the past week or so, a family of California Quail have apparently taken residence on the property—an adult pair and three chicks. They lurk in the garden, the spring across the driveway, they’ve even taken swift flight (those tiny babies are great fliers!) up into the trees. I worried a bit this afternoon, seeing the mom and only two young ’uns (there’s at least one loose house cat in the neighborhood, grr), but the third showed up with the dad a little later.
Whew.
(Also fun have been the butterflies, and occasional hummingbird—but those stories will have to wait for another day.)
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:04 a.m. (8:04 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
Cooler this morning, with gusty winds and clouds flying by overhead. Pretty quiet headed up with dog—fewer vocalizing birds than yesterday. Also random appearances: a pair of Cooper’s Hawks, a sudden magpie.
Returning, I heard the inimitable cry of a Red-tailed Hawk. And again—again. It’s a pretty amazing sound (to me, at least), but I couldn’t spot the hawk. About a hundred yards later, I happened to spy a pair of ’em high above, facing into the wind, motionless except for an occasional wing-flap. Using their legs as rudders, they were just hanging there.
Earlier, a fog of sorts had come blowing through from the lake (looked like), then the clouds piled up on each other, and sun rays found their way through, and the wind continued to gust and blow.
Odd weather—but very cool.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 7:06 a.m. (8:06 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.
It was supposed to snow a few inches overnight, but it only snowed about an inch. Not as cold as yesterday, nor as breezy. And birds were out—not many individuals, but a dozen species.
Saw the dependable woodpecker again, but no solitaire. At one point I had two corvids, two sparrows, two tits, two finches, and two woodpeckers.
Scrub-jays were the only birds in the juniper barren, though.
Grandeur Peak Area List Beginning at 8:39 a.m. (MST), I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.
