Birds and Nature

Two days ago I birded Red Canyon Park which is about 8 miles north of Canon City. Primarily a pinyon-juniper habitat, it does have a normally dry gulch that drains much of this city 'mountain park' so a number of deciduous trees grow in it. Hackberry trees do well in the very sandy parts of this gulch and that is where I found a lot of warblers--mostly Wilson's with some a number of first-of-season Yellow-rumped, a few Townsend's and Orange-crowned Warblers plus a couple of Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Chipping Sparrows. I did not have my cameras though I was able to get close enough to get a photo of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet with my Samsung Galaxy 3 smartphone that only has 4X zoom. I returned today to Red Canyon Park and the warbler fest was even larger with fewer Wilson's Warblers but at least 25-35 Townsend's, 20-25 Yellow-rumped, a few Orange-crowned, 1 MacGillivray's (in the trees) and 1 Virginia's Warblers. Most of the Townsend's flocke...

The last two days I have seen, each day, approximately 75 warblers and all but a few have been Wilson's Warblers. And most of the Wilson's Warblers have been foraging an and around two stands of Common Reed (I suspect the non-native species) on the Canon City Riverwalk (bottom photo is one in those reeds). The one stand of reeds is about 50 feet long by only 25 feet wide but 25 Wilson's Warblers flew out of it this morning when I gave a chip call that apparently sounded to them by an alarm call (who knew). The other and larger stand of reeds had a MacGillivray's and 2 Orange-crowned Warblers foraging inside when I bushwacked to it yesterday (too wet this morning to get real close). A few Wilson's Warblers were also in other stands of different vegetation in various places along the 2 1/2 miles of trail I checked. None were in any of the many willow stands. SeEtta

I found this adult Eastern Phoebe perched on the opposite side of the Arkansas River from the Canon City Riverwalk this morning. Yesterday I found 3 Eastern Phoebes, 2 adults and 1 juvenile, in the Canon City area. This may still be some post breeding movement but seems more likely they are migrating (they are rarely seen in Colorado during winter but unknown if they migrate south in New Mexico or more easterly or southeastly). SeEtta

Also yesterday I found 7 Common Tern at Brush Hollow State Park. This is a pretty rare bird in this location as few terns come to this location. SeEtta

I also found this Black Phoebe along the Arkansas River near Holcim Wetlands yesterday. Then early yesterday evening I was really delighted to watch at least 10 Chimney Swifts fly over my house. They were flying fairly high up (so no photos) and I haven't seen more than one or two in Canon City this summer so believe these are migrating swifts. SeEtta

I took the photo above from the property of Holcim Cement (they own the Holcim Wetlands and I am on their citizen advisory committee). The bridge visible in the photo is the newly constructed vehicle bridge for CR120 to cross the Arkansas River. Behind that the railroad bridge is visible showing the flood waters coming to about 4 feet under that bridge (I believe it rose a short distance more before receeding). The area flooded directly in the front is the water intake works for the Holcim Plant and it is under a few feet of water (they shut off their intake of water when it's got all the debris and mud in it). This short video clip really shows the strength of the river flooding. SeEtta

After some unprecedented amounts of rain at my house in Canon City (approx 5 inches in 36 hours) I drove out to Holcim Wetlands to see how it was fairing. It was clear from the road, as shown it top photo, that the trail entrance that goes under the RR bridge was flooded as was Hardscrabble Creek that caused the trail to be underwater. I ran into a Holcim employee in the parking lot and accompanied him via an alternate route to check on damage to the wetland and trail area from flooding. The photo just above shows a more close-up view of the very flooded Hardscrabble Creek and now under a foot of water trail entrance. It will be awhile before the water is gone and the mud that will remain dries to allow entry. The third photo shows the wetland pond area that is almost to bankful due to flooding. We found that the Arkansas River, which runs adjacent to the wetlands, had flooded through the trail in several locations on both the west and north sides causing extensive da...