carpodacus (from karpos, fruit, and dakos, biter) cassinii (named for John Cassin, 19th-century Philadelphia ornithologist)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 — 10:43 am
Phantom Canyon Road — Fremont County, Colorado
The bird I saw was a female. It was calling repeatedly from the branches of a dead tree in a clearing near the first tunnel.
It was a large, plump finch, with distinct, fine streaks on its belly. It was making a loud call, which is how I located it. It stuck around for about two minutes.
vireo (to be green) plumbeus (the color of lead)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 — 10:05 am
Phantom Canyon Road — Fremont County, Colorado
It was a lot easier to hear this bird than it was to see it. I spent about 10 minutes trying to track down where the song was coming from before I spotted it in a small tree. It was in the lower canyon, across the creek from the road.
Shortly after I spotted it, it flew to a dead branch over the road, giving me excellent views. It looked very much like a Blue-headed Vireo (they were once considered the same species), but without the color. I heard several others and saw one more on my trip up the canyon.
It’s 29.6 miles from Florence to Victor on Phantom Canyon Road. It took me four-and-a-half hours to make the trip. It wasn’t a road I wanted to speed on, but that’s not the reason it took me so long. I stopped and got out at least 25 times, and just stopped to admire the view another 30 or so times. During those 29.6 miles, I might have seen 15 cars. Traffic was so light that there were several times I just parked my car in the middle of the road and wandered around the area. This was never a problem.
The road follows the bed of an old railroad that was used to transport gold out of the mountains to the north. It goes through two tunnels and over several bridges, the longest of which is an iron trestle from the original railroad. The road starts in the short-grass flats along the Arkansas River Valley, passes through several plant zones and ends in the town of Victor, right at the timberline. I kept thinking it couldn’t go much higher or get much prettier, but it kept doing both.
There were birds around, more so at the bottom of the canyon. I can’t recall seeing any animals other than cows. The weather could not have been better. I took 153 photos. Those posted here appear in the order I took them.
Enjoy the ride.
I enjoyed every bit of those 29.6 miles. I want to go back.
empidonax (from empis, gnat, mosquito, and anax, king) wrightii (given by Spencer F. Baird in 1858 for Charles Wright, a Connecticut botanist who collected birds in the Southwest)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 — 9:00 am
Temple Canyon Road — Canon City, Colorado
I spent a little over an hour birding Temple Canyon Road from Canon City to the border of Temple Canyon Park and back. There were birds around, but I wasn’t having much luck identifying them. On the way back down, I heard a bird singing loudly from a pine near the road. I quickly pulled over and got out. That bird turned out to be a Black-headed Grosbeak, but while I was tracking it , I became aware of another bird singing on the far side of a small valley.
It sounded like an empidonax flycatcher, but I knew it wasn’t one I’d seen before. I also knew Gray Flycatchers were often seen along this road. I read the description of its calls in my bird book — “two phrases so different they seem unrelated: mostly a rough jr-vrip, occasionally a high whistled tidoo.” That’s exactly what I was hearing.
It took me a while to find the bird, but I eventually did. It was perched on a branch of that dead tree barely visible in the center of the above photo. It was too far away for me to get a close look, but I could tell it was a small flycatcher. When perched, it slowly wagged its tail downward. It flitted to two or three other nearby trees and then down into the valley out of my sight.
tamias quadrivittatus
Wednesday, May 9, 2012 — 8:50 am
Temple Canyon Road — Canon City, Colorado
As I drove down Temple Canyon Road, I had to slow down to make a sharp turn on a switchback. I heard a loud chirping noise coming from the jumble of rocks and branches and saw a chipmunk hop up on a short stump.
We looked at each other for perhaps 30 seconds. When I slowly pulled forward to see if I could get a better light angle, it disappeared into the brush.
It doesn’t really have a long, pointed nose. A branch in the background just makes it look like it does.
