Listing Through Life

sialia (bird) currucoides (from carruca, carriage, and eidos, appearance)

Monday, April 29, 2002 — 8:01 am

Teller County, Colorado — Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

I had three target birds — Mountain Bluebird, Mountain Chickadee and Williamson’s Sapsucker. Within an hour and a half, I saw all three.

I was at the park when the gate opened at 7:30. Several construction workers were building a new visitor center and an older couple arrived as I was leaving, but apart from them I had the place to myself. I started wandering the trails and found myself on the Petrified Forest Loop. (I have no interest in fossils, so I never read any of the signs to find out what was significant about the place.) Two Pygmy Nuthatches and a Red-shafted Flicker grabbed my attention. I was watching one of the nuthatches climbing out on the one remaining limb of a dead pine stump. All of a sudden I realized I was looking at a different bird.

A lone female Mountain Bluebird was sitting in a pine just above the dead branch. Moments later I found a male on the dead branch about a foot below her. They were watching me, sitting motionless. We were in an open grove of pines that covered about an acre on a little knoll in the middle of a meadow. Off to the east, Pikes Peak looked huge. Other mountains and rock formations stuck up wherever I looked. It was an awesome place to see an awesome bird.

After a few moments, the two Bluebirds flew down through the grove and landed in the tops of three-foot pines at the edge of the grove. At that point, I was distracted by a flock of Clark’s Nutcrackers. About 10 minutes later I was walking across the meadow. I saw the Mountain Bluebirds in small shrubs in the open. The female took off after a large flying bug. She missed on the first attempt but I think she got it on the second try. At the same time I was watching them, I spotted a pair of Western Bluebirds sitting in the top of taller pines nearby. The two species seemed to be hanging out together. Two hours later when I was returning to the car, I saw all four birds in an open area of pines on the other side of the knoll. They were flitting down to the ground and back up to open perches in the manner of bluebirds everywhere.

The male Mountain Bluebird was sky blue, a bit lighter on the breast and belly. The female was a light pearly gray with sky blue on her wings and tail. Neither had any rufous coloring anywhere. Both seemed slimmer and trimmer than Eastern or Western Bluebirds.

urocitellus elegans

Monday, April 29, 2002 — 7:25 am

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado

I got up early and drove into the mountains to do some birding. I arrived at Florissant Fossil Beds before it opened, so I parked in the lot for the Hornbek Homestead, an 1878 cabin that’s been restored by the park service.

The Wyoming Ground Squirrels were foraging on the trail to the cabin and in the short, dry grass between the parking lot and the cabin. One was very close, near a hole next to a wooden fence post. They would occasionally stand up on their hind legs and look around. They were aware of me and moved further away, but didn’t panic. I later saw more in other areas of the park, running through the grass in the meadows.

cinclus (bird) mexicanus (of Mexico)

Sunday, April 28, 2002 — 12:53 pm

Fremont County, Colorado — Arkansas River — Royal Gorge

I was watching specifically for this bird. I knew the raft trip would be my best chance to see it. So I was ready when I saw the first one as it flew low and rapidly from the right bank in front of and then to the left of the raft, disappearing upriver.

All of the Dippers I saw on the trip were in the Royal Gorge and all but one were doing the same thing the first one was — flying upstream past the raft. The one I saw best was flying downstream in front of the raft close to the narrows where the canyon is deepest. I saw where it landed and kept watching as we drifted closer. It was standing on a rock at the waters edge, dipping its entire body up and down. When we were about 20 feet away, it jumped down into the water and swam belly-deep for about two feet to another rock. It then flew downriver again, landing briefly on a flat rock under a overhanging boulder before flying downstream out of sight.

It was a plump bird with long legs and a very short tail. Its body was dark slate gray and its head was dark flat brown. It flew with very rapid wingbeats, and I never saw one more than two feet above the river surface.

nucifraga (from nucis, nut, and frangere, to break) columbiana (of the Columbia River)

Sunday, April 28, 2002 — 12:45 pm

Fremont County, Colorado — Arkansas River — Royal Gorge

I went to Colorado Springs for a convention. A coworker and I flew out a day early so we could go white-water rafting through the Royal Gorge on the Arkansas River. We set off around 9:30 and paddled through Bighorn Sheep Canyon in the morning before stopping for lunch at the Parkdale landing. The river was low, and although the rapids were frequent, they weren’t particularly challenging. I had plenty of time to watch the banks of the river for animals and birds. Soon after lunch we entered the Royal Gorge. The canyon walls gradually got higher and closer as we progressed. Soon after entering the canyon, we drifted down a quiet stretch. I noticed a medium-size bird fly across the river and land in a lone pine growing close to the south bank. I had to wait until we got close since I didn’t have my binoculars, but I knew it was something interesting.

There were five Nutcrackers in the tree. They hopped branch to branch and called their hoarse calls. One flew down to a rock at the edge of the water then back up into the tree when we got close. We drifted past fast, so I wasn’t able to study them long. They were gray with black wings. Their bills were long, straight and black. Their short tails were black with broad white edges.

The next morning I drove west from Colorado Springs to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and saw several more. They were flying around an open grove of pines on a knoll in a meadow. At one point, four of them gathered on a branch in a dead pine. Two of them were putting on a display, bobbing up and down on the branch with their wings and tails spread. This gave me a good look at the large rectangular white patches on the trailing edge of their wings. I soon got to know their raucous calls.