Sapsuckers today: total of 19 in Canon City, CO Area

-
I started off to just do a count of the female Williamson's Sapsuckers today as there are so many birds it seemed like it would be easier to just count the males and females on different days, but shifts in sapsucker locations changed my plan. The first sapsucker I spotted this morning at Centennial Park was a male, the first time I have seen a male at this location this year. Then I realized there were two sapsuckers in that same pine tree, one a male and the other a female. Sapsuckers do not like to share. The male proceeded to behave aggressively towards the female-he raised his crest and moved towards her, and get this--he gave a churr call then what sounded like he hissed at her. I was only 20-25 feet away so I could hear the interaction fairly well and it sounded like a hiss. (Of course, I can't find anything in the literature about such a sound by this species though I did find that young Red-headed Woodpecker nestlings do hiss.) Anyway, this caused the female to retreat to a another pine tree about 80 feet away. Though I saw 3 female (but no male) Williamson's in Centennial Park just about a week ago, all I could find today were these two.
In addition to this location shift, I could only locate one male Williamson's at Rouse Park and in the location where a second male has been for weeks was a female Williamson's. I also found a second female in the pines on the other side of Rouse Park a location where I had not previously seen female Williamson's this year.

I also located a male Williamson's in some pines in a private yard, a new location, I have checked this week as it looked like a good spot for this species. This supports my belief that there are likely more sapsuckers located on private property where I not able to find them.

In total I saw 10 males again today, though I missed a few I saw yesterday while finding males in new locations today. I saw a total of 7 female Williamson's and have added the female I have watched just outside of Canon City for two consecutive days to the totals. And I saw the male Red-naped Sapsucker today too for a total of 19 sapsuckers.
SeEtta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spotted Sandpiper Chicks, 3 more days older

-
Image
Two days when I went to check on the Spotted Sandpiper family at Florence River Park I thought they had likely perished--there were two men engaged in gold panning right where the parent sandpiper had been and they had dug some of the sand from the bank where I last saw the sandpiper chicks. Arggh, I was afraid that all this activity, plus a large off leash dog with these people, would have scared the parent away and even if the chicks were successful in hiding in the vegetation they would not survive without a parent at their young age. What a surprise when I returned that evening for one last check to be accosted by the parent sandpiper calling loudly and challenging me by walking right towards me (and my dog). It took awhile for the parent to settle down and for one of the chicks to walk in some grass where I could spot it--the parent had moved the chicks about 150 from the river into an area with a lot of vegetation. I returned day before yesterday and refound the parent and
Read more

Recently fledged Common Raven

-
Image
At the end of March this year I spotted a Common Raven going into a crevice above a rock face of a local cliff area called Castle Rock (as part of it looks sort of like a castle). I started watching this area and observed a pair of Common Ravens spending time around this location. On March 27 I spotted one of the ravens inside the crevice which now had what looked like nesting material in it--the photograph of that is the second pic here. I continued off and on to check this apparent crevice nest. At the end of May I saw what appeared to be a nestling inside the crevice. I continued birding in the riparian forest across the Arkansas River from this cliff area. When I was about a quarter mile away I heard a lot of raven racket and walked to a spot where I could see the cliff area through my binoculars. I could see a lot of raven action with the parent birds calling loudly so I expected that the nestling may have fledged or they were trying to get it to fledge. I went back t
Read more