vontosbirds-blog-blog

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Greater Prairie-Chickens, Colorado, April 8, 2022.

I couldn’t figure out how to filter the wind noise without also filtering the chickens’ booming, so you’re getting it unedited. If you hate wind noise in videos, turn your volume down.

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Tundra and Trumpeter Swans in Pueblo, February 6, 2022.

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Why do you not blog anymore?

Tumblr got sad so I stopped using it. Should I go back to posting birds here?

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Depending on where you live, these might be as common as a robin, but this was the first mockingbird I’d seen in almost two years.

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The second Lark Sparrow I’ve found this week.

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Here’s a Bald Eagle on a nest I found a couple weeks ago. Oddly, this nest is nowhere near any large bodies of water.

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The weather has been pretty bad here lately, and the birding has been almost as bad. Wind and storm systems aren’t letting many migrating birds in. I’ve been finding a trickle of common new birds, but I haven’t seen anything really good since the Smith’s Longspurs on April 3. I’m up to 134 this year, but I’m starting to fall behind on my target birds.

On a positive note, I’m finding warblers a lot earlier than I did the two previous springs. I’m up to 7 species this year; the last couple years I was stuck on 2 or 3 until the last 2 days of the month. I still haven’t found the Pine Warbler I’ve been looking for all month, but I found several of them in May last year. I’m not worried yet about only finding common birds this month, but if nothing changes by the end of the month I’ll start getting nervous.

The shorebird situation is confusing to me. My county doesn’t have many good spots for shorebirds (and making matters worse, we didn’t get enough rain to flood any fields), but even nearby shorebird hot spots aren’t attracting much. Last April I saw 15 species of shorebirds; the best spring shorebird hot spot in the area only has 7 this year (after having 22 last April). We’ll see if anything changes this next week and into May.

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Lately it seems like I only see exciting birds when they are far away on an overcast day. These Black-necked Stilts were across the river (so I don’t get to count them in my county! Sad day.) but are still a pretty good find. There were four Stilts total, which I guess is the most I’ve seen this close to home.

This beach is going to cause me some problems this year. It’s visible from the county I’m sticking to but not close enough for there to be any realistic chance of the shorebirds flying across the border. The last couple years a number of good shorebirds have been down there, including Willets, American Avocets, Sanderling, and White-rumped Sandpiper. There isn’t a lot of good shorebird habitat in the area, so any shorebirds (other than the 10 or so extremely common ones) are going to be hard for me to find. Seeing the uncommon shorebirds taunting me over there is going to be tough.

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#109 Smith’s Longspur

I drove all over the place chasing birds this last week, but it should save me miles in the long run. In particular, getting a tip on Smith’s Longspur could save me 100+ miles I would have spent trying to find some on my own. Yesterday afternoon was really windy by the time I got out there. If you’re not familiar with the country in the Midwest, know that the wind gusts more often than not in the afternoon. The wind was knocking down all the birds, including the Smith’s. I drove up and down the road a few times before giving up and just sitting by the side of the road waiting for something to happen.

45 minutes later and still nothing had happened. I was about to leave when I heard a rattle behind me. Now, it was probably an Eastern Meadowlark rattle, but it was enough to make me wait just long enough to see 3 Smith’s Longspurs fly up and circle around a couple times! The guy who found them said there was a flock of 40+ circling around and singing for several minutes, but I guess the wind was too strong by the time I got out there. I found my own flock of Smith’s last year, but I’ll gladly settle for seeing someone else’s find this time.

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Trumpeter Swan on April 2. I was on the opposite end of the county when I got an email about this bird and raced out to get this picture 2 minutes before the sun set. Whoever lives here had a Trumpeter Swan roosting in their yard that night. Lucky...this was the first time I’d even seen one in the county.

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Rusty Blackbird on April 1. Rusty Blackbird is another of my favorite birds, though I’m at a loss to explain why (They look like blackbirds and act like blackbirds; I don’t usually care for blackbirds.). I spend a lot of time each year trying to chase down Rusties, and this year was no exception. I got a text about some Rusties at a backwater lake and found a bunch. I counted 20 on the mud around the lake with more singing from the trees around the edge. I’d never seen more than 7 at a time before this.

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A Horned Grebe I found on March 26. Horned Grebes are one of my favorite birds, though I admit I prefer to see them either in full breeding or full non-breeding plumage. This was the first Horned Grebe I’ve ever seen in the county and the only one I’ve seen this spring.

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#94 Purple Finch

I mentioned in a previous post the Brewer’s Blackbird I found. The week following that was mostly disappointing except for the pair of Purple Finches I ran into on March 22. I was shivering on a morning that was much colder than I expected when I heard a familiar song.... The previous night I was listening to Purple Finch recordings because I didn’t want to miss some in the tops of trees. Sure enough, the next day I ran into a pair--only the second time I’ve seen the species in the county.

Strangely I didn’t see the singing male. I’ve now seen 15 Purple Finches in my life and all have been female.

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2015 County Big Year update

Things have ramped up here since the last week in March. I’ve found a handful of good birds that I’ll post about individually. I’m at 109 right now before all the insect-eating birds start to arrive; this number is similar to what others had at this point in years they set nearby county records. I am a little concerned because this is when they start to pick up shorebirds, herons, and other wetland species. My county doesn’t have any great wetlands or shorebird spots, and it hasn’t rained enough to flood any fields yet. I have to continue doing great on woodland/grassland species to make up for that defecit.

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Another funny excerpt from “The Field Guide to Little-Known and Seldom-Seen Birds of North America”.

http://www.thebirdist.com/2013/06/book-review-field-guide-to-little-known.html

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