Birds and Nature

Yesterday I found a pair of Golden Eagles on a new new site here in Fremont County. Though this pair may be the pair I have observed perched on hilltop about a mile from this nest site, I have never seen their nest site before. And this cliff nest site has previously been used by a pair of Red-tailed Hawks I have followed for some years. I believe it is unusual for Golden Eagles to take over a hawk nest site. It is also unusual for them to be sitting on eggs already. The Colo Breeding Bird Atlas I (only one I could find date info on at this time) showed Golden Eagles on nests from April on. And the Golden Eagles I have previously observed nesting in another part of Fremont County weren't on the nest before late March or early April. I got to observe the mail come in and relieve the female on the nest and a lot of neat eagle flying by the male and some by the female. In the pic above the eye of the eagle is just seen above the nesting material on the left side of the...

I found this Red-breasted Nuthatch, and a friend, in Red Canyon Park north of Canon City. The park is in pinyon-juniper habitat and the green in the background is from the juniper trees the bird was feeding in. SeEtta

I spotted this adult Bald Eagle at the edge of the Arkansas River this afternoon in the Bighorn Sheep Canyon west of Canon City. (I think their talons are not only really large but impressively black, standing out from the orangy color of their feet as though they were painted on) I don't know if it had been bathing but it didn't look wet. It may have been picnicking next to the river. It flew off and perched several miles downstream in a snag over the river where I got the pics below. While perched it looked around but also looked up quite a few times. I couldn't see anything above it but I don't have eagle-eyes so could have been a bird/birds higher up out of my sight. Just for context, the eagle was about 250-300 feet away when it was down by the river and 400-500 feet away when perched on the snag. I was using my 70-300 mm,f5.7 Canon Lens on my Canon 60d dslr camera. And I cropped all of the photos to enlarge them. SeEtta

This afternoon I spotted this juvenile Golden Eagle being harassed by 2 Red-tailed Hawks as the eagle apparently had trespassed into the hawks territory in Penrose (nearby small town). Unfortunately they were more than 400 feet away so even with my long lens and then cropping the pic to enlarge I couldn't get the birds any larger. The hawks, (presumably a pair) while considerably smaller than the eagle, were quite brazen diving at the eagle and coming very close to it. The eagle and the hawks engaged in some amazing acrobatics for a few minutes until the eagle could head out and get away from this pair. SeEtta

This female Long-tailed Duck was found by a local birder a few days ago. I got this pic yesterday but lost the media card for 24 hrs and just refound it. This species is pretty rare in my area with the last in 2012 that I found at Brush Hollow Res . The current Long-tailed Duck has less black on it's head than the one I found 2012. Interestingly that one was found only one day in January before this one. It is not easy to see and photograph this duck as this property is private. I photographed it from the public parking lot in front but quickly lost the duck as it swam on back where not visible from the public area. SeEtta

I spotted this adult Northern Goshawk this afternoon a few miles east of Canon City in a cactus grassland area as it flew across the road in front of me. While I couldn't see field marks as I was too distant it's flying very low to the ground got my attention. When it landed in a juniper shrub about 200 feet from me I stopped my car and saw it's white eyebrow in my binoculars so grabbed my camera and quickly got off a few shots in the short time before it flew off. As I only had about 30 seconds to get pics and there was no good place to pull off the road I had to take the pics with my car running (pulled to the side of the driving lane, fortunately no traffic came by) so that added to less than great shots. But these pics clearly show the salient field marks for adult Northern Goshawk: that big white supercilium (eyebrow stripe, dark stripe through eye, dark cap, long tail, bluish grey upperparts and some broad dark but inconspicuous bands on it's grey tail ...

While the Rufous-crowned Sparrow above looks disheveled it is only because it had just been bathing in some melted snow water and drying off in the sun (on a cool, upper 30's, but sunny day). The Rufous-crowned Sparrows that are resident in the Tunnel Drive area of Canon City associate with Canyon Towhees and the towhee below had just bathed also. SeEtta