Birds and Nature

s Another Christmas Day find in my yard was both the black and the brown White-throated Sparrows. I hadn't seen for awhile but could be the weather and my schedule reduced my watching birds in my backyard. They are not calling like they did before but still going to my birdbath frequently. SeEtta

Some years montane birds that normally reside a higher up in elevation in the foothills or mountains engage in an attitudinal migration and visit lower elevation areas of Colorado. I have had two of another montane species, Red-breasted Nuthatches, visiting my yard for more than a month. I spotted this single female Cassin's Finch on Christmas Day. It has been several years since I have seen a Cassin's Finch in my yard. I didn't see it visit my feeders but I have not had the time to watch lately. While these female Cassin's are just brown and white I think their crisp streaking is attractive. Some females have a more distinct pale eyebrow and submoustachial stripe than this bird though these pale areas do show in a few pics. SeEtta

The scoter 'invasion' into Colorado continues. While we only got a Surf Scoter in Canon City, Colorado Springs with a much larger pond has had all three scoters in the past month. I recently was near Prospect Pond and stopped for a few minutes to see if any of the scoters were still there-I was rewarded with this female White-winged Scoter. SeEtta Moss

In the mix of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches I thought I saw one or more Brown-capped Rosy-Finches and I believe these photos, at least the top one, show field marks for a female of that species.  Birds of North America (BNA) online describes these as follows:  "Female similar to male but browns much lighter (contra Clement 1993); feathers of belly, rump, etc., with pink (instead of red) margins that are also narrower and less distinct, or sometimes nearly absent; and crown-patch sometimes less distinct."   The Essential Field Guide Companion by Pete Dunn notes that female Brown-capped Rosy-Finches "are plainer and lead-colored." He further notes in reference to the Brown-capped species, "the uniformity in plumage and absence of contrasting gray crown distinguish this species." Clearly these photos show bird(s) without evident pink but BNA indicates that occurs with female Brown-capped Rosy-Finches. SeEtta

Yesterday I drove up to Westcliffe in hopes that the snow there the day before had kept the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches that Jane Pederson had been nice enough to report had been seen on their CBC Sunday at the St Andrew Golf Course just outside of town. As she noted it is unusual to see this species on the floor of the Wet Mountain Valley as this is called as they are usually found at higher altitude (related to having snow on the ground which is what I hoped kept them at this lower elevation, albeit almost 8,000 ft in this high mountain valley). As can clearly be seen that flock of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches was still there and I got a lot of pics of them though few reasonably good close-ups (though using 50X+ magnification and cropping a few that allowed that to get more magnification) as these birds rarely sit still-either moving along as they feed or flushing as a flock and flying hundreds of yards away and back every few minutes. SeEtta Nevertheless this good sized flock of ...

I spotted this Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk (dark/intermediate morph) yesterday a little east of Canon City perched in a tree as shown in the top pic. This is clearly a different bird than the first Harlan's I found which had an unusual amount of white on it's face--this bird has some white in the loral area and a white 'streak' around it's forehead. It also has some white mottling on it's breast and as shown in the bottom pic some bright white streaking on the underside of it's tail. Another very spooky bird, it flushed after I took a few photos of it in the tree from inside my car over 150 away. I was sorry to see it was soon met by a pair of local Red-tailed Hawks that escorted it off their territory. These poor wintering Harlan's must have a hard time finding locations to hunt and rest. SeEtta

I found this Black Phoebe in Florence River Park today. As is often the case with this species I heard it's 'tsip' call first then found it visually. I hadn't seen any Black Phoebes for awhile in the area but the brutal temps in November likely kept them in the most protected locations where they would find some flying insects to sustain them. A few of this species usually overwinters in the Canon City to Pueblo area every year since the first Black Phoebe for the county that I found in 1995 stayed at least into February and survived one of our worst winters with a low of 18 below zero F that month. SeEtta