Birds and Nature

Beautiful morning at Sell's Lake-spotted this Northern Waterthrush working in a section with downed tree trunks and wonderful places to go under growth on the shoreline. Then spotted my first of year American Redstart, a female-but as I was about to get a photo another bird flushed it out of sight. Also another push of Wilson's Warblers through the area after a few days absence. Still good numbers of Yellow-rumps. SeEtta

It was hard to ignore this large and colorful skipper today in some weedy vegetation near the Canon City Riverwalk. Though I have read these Silver-spotted Skippers are pretty common I don't having seen them before. SeEtta

This is one of several Plumbeous Vireos I heard and/or saw yesterday on the Canon City Riverwalk in lowland riparian forest only about a half mile from my house. It was very busy foraging for food then eating a nice bug as shown. If you click on the photo above you can see the bug much closer for id. SeEtta

If you ever wondered why they named these 'Violet-green' these photos will demonstrate that those these birds are violet, blue and green colored. I took these photos with super zoom and then cropped them a little more to get these close-up views. The weather was a little snowy so light was poor but the birds were perching longer due to the cold weather. This was the day of our big late snowstorm that caused 'fall-out' conditions so there were a lot of swallows that were forced down during their migration. SeEtta

This is one of many Gray Flycatchers brought down in 'fall-out' conditions in Canon City, CO by a late snowstorm (I personally found at least 22 Gray Flycatchers). This bird was taped the day after the storm as it perched at Sell's Lake while foraging. It shows the tail dipping distinctive to this species. Interestingly it loses it's balance and almost falls off the perch. SeEtta

I spotted this Northern Waterthrush working some of the overhanging branches at Sell's Lake in Canon City on Tuesday, the day of the big fall out of birds in Canon City caused by the late snowstorm. It kept moving away whenever I had a clear view until it had a lot of little branches between us--it stood still as it appeared think it was now hidden but I found a line of view through to get these photos. I saw one in the same location today, could be another be seems likely it is the same one staying to feed and rest up for it's continued migration. SeEtta

When I checked this morning after my class I found 12 Gray Flycatchers in the same locations I checked yesterday. They were all actively foraging but not with much apparent success--it was still pretty chilly so not much insect activity. So I went to the one local pet store in my town for mealworms. They were out of mealworms but I saw they had crickets, which sounded like a better choice for this type of bird. So I bought their last 40 or so 'small' (pretty tiny) crickets. Then came the task of figuring out how to get them to the birds which do not allow close approach. I tried throwing some up in the air near two flycatchers in hopes they would see them wiggle on the way down--didn't look like that worked so I just threw a handfull next to locations I had seen the birds foraging. I think I saw a robin pick up and eat one of the crickets but I needed to drive to the other locations so couldn't just watch. With the sun out today I got some better photos that ...