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Showing posts from January 3, 2016

New dark morph Harlan's Hawk with whitish tail in Canon City

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I first spotted this black hawk over the week-end and from it's behavior and looks without binoculars thought it was a Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk. I has been very distant from the road when it perches so strained my long zoom and then cropping to get these pics. From it's whitish tail this is not one that I have seen here in recent weeks. It shows the black, rather than brown plumage found on Western Red-tails, a little white on it's face and most prominent is the whitish tail with dark tip. Interestingly there is a second Harlan's here that was perched several hundred yards from this one over fields. SeEtta

Wilson's Snipe I photographed before recent cold spell

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I found this Wilson's Snipe working in a drainage ditch (actually what is called 'return flow' ditch for return of excess irrigation water) on private property in the Canon City area. This was before our recent cold spell that froze much of the water in this ditch. SeEtta

Large flock of Eastern Bluebirds for this western edge of their range

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Yesterday I found an unusually large flock of at least 20 but more likely 30 or more Eastern Bluebirds just east of Canon City. As we are right up next to the mountains where they are not found they are fairly uncommon in this area. However while we do usually get some of these in the winter it is generally 5-10. I found and photographed these on private property where they were coming down to drink from a canal that was mostly iced over. I followed the flock as it flew over to the Pathfinder Park where they appeared to be foraging in some Russian Olive trees that had good numbers of olive fruit on them and they were fairly small in size. SeEtta