Something At Least

Posted on February 22, 2020 by Roger

The Gyrfalcon that occasionally hung out by the Larimer County landfill last winter is back this winter, as occasional as ever. I spent two long, dull, unsuccessful mornings there a year ago but hadn’t been back lately. I decided to try again, but this time, I would do it right. I got up at 5:00 and drove north through Denver in the dark. It was just about sunrise when I arrived at the spot.

There was no Gyrfalcon to greet me. I parked along the road and settled in. In time, three other birds came by and joined me. The thing that makes waiting for a Gyrfalcon so tedious is that there are very few other birds to see in the area. Half a mile off, ravens and gulls swarm around the landfill, but other than that, I saw a House Finch and a magpie in almost four hours.

At 11:00, I took a break and headed into Fort Collins for a disappointing meal at the Waffle Lab restaurant. For a place that specializes in waffles, theirs weren’t very good. And they way over-cooked the bacon.

I headed back to the landfill and spent another 20 minutes, but I wasn’t feeling it. I decided to cut my loses and head south. I stopped at the reservoir in Firestone and saw 15 or 16 Snow Geese mixed in with the enormous number of Canada and Cackling Geese.

Then I headed to South Platte Reservoir to see a pair of Long-tailed Ducks. I saw them earlier in the year, but at that time they were on the far side of the lake, half a mile away. Lately people have been seeing them much closer to the path.

Back when people were allowed to have a sense of humor, Long-tailed Ducks were called Oldsquaws because the noise made by a flock sounds exactly like a bunch of old ladies cackling. But somebody decided that we ought to find that name offensive, so it was changed to the totally uninteresting Long-tailed Duck.

Back when I first began birding, I used to see flocks along the shore of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. They were generally far out, either bobbing on (an usually behind) the waves or flying low over the water. I had to fight the brutal, damp winds of winter to see them. The ones I saw today were easier, and in shirt-sleeve weather too.

It’s a pair. The male is the one with the white crown. They hung very close together. For the first 10 minutes I watched, they repeatedly dove, always within seconds of each other. When they would come back up (again almost at the same time), they would swim close to each other again. After a while, they drifted further away and began preening.

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Massey Park

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Roger

A good friend of mine made a miniature park for me and surprised me with it this past week. It includes 22 birds, a small creek, and a guy sitting on a rock.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that I had to make this video. The production quality is poor — there are odd jumps in some of the scenes and the music cuts out early — but I had fun creating it.

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Early Spring

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Roger

On Sunday morning, Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring this year. He may be on to something. It reached the mid-60°s on Saturday and almost 70° on Sunday. (On the other hand, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow and get down to -8° on Tuesday night, so what do rodents know.

I wanted to bird locally, but none of my usual spots seemed exciting. I decided to try a place I’d never been — Bluestem Prairie, south of the Colorado Springs Airport. The prairie circles Big Johnson Reservoir. Another birder told me the water had been drained out of the reservoir recently and whoever takes care of these things had just started letting the water back in. It’s happening fast. I visited on Saturday morning, briefly again on Saturday afternoon, and a third time early Sunday afternoon. I could see a decided difference in the water level from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.

I’m guessing the water is uprooting the local rodent population, because there were a lot of hawks around. At one point I counted 14 hawks and two eagles in view at once, and I’m sure there were many more that were down in the grass pursuing or eating prey.

Most of the hawks were Red-tails, including one that was so pale I suspect it may be the Krider’s subspecies. Who knows how many Northern Harriers were around? There was at least one in view almost all the time. I picked out at least one juvenile Rough-legged Hawk sitting down in the reeds. I thought I saw a juvenile Ferruginous Hawk on Saturday morning but I just couldn’t pull the trigger and list it because it was so far away. I know I saw an adult dark-phase and an adult light-phase bird circling overhead at different times on Sunday.

A fair number of several species of ducks were on the reservoir — water is so scarce out here that it doesn’t take ducks and geese long to find it. On Sunday, I walked about 5 miles in the prairie and finally chased down and photographed a lone Lapland Longspur hanging with a flock of about 30 Horned Larks. I hadn’t seen a Lapland Longspur since 2002, so this was the highlight for me, even though the hawks were very cool to see.

Juvenile Northern Harrier

A dark-phase Ferruginous Hawk. There’s quite a bit of this bird on the video below.

The Lapland Longspur. Check out those rear claws!

Here’s the longspur on the ground with a Horned Lark.

There were also a handful of very tame Pronghorns and a wealth of Black-tailed Prairie Dogs. The latter were yelping at me much of the day.

I’ve heard people say that Pronghorns can’t jump fences — that they have to scooch under. I’ve seen them go under, but the video proves they can jump when they want to.

In the five or so hours I spent at Bluestem Prairie, I only saw 20 species of birds, but there were some great finds that made the time worthwhile.

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Highlights from Recent Reading

Posted on January 27, 2020 by Roger

Like their Puritan ancestors whose banner they carried, these citizen-soldiers of Massachusetts were very clear about their purposes. They called to mind Oliver Cromwell’s plain russet-coated captain, who knew what he fought for, and loved what he knew.

Many years later Captain Levi Preston of Danvers was asked why he went to war that day. At the age of ninety-one, his memory of the Lexington alarm was crystal clear, and his understanding was very different from academic interpretations of this event. An historian asked him, “Captain Preston, what made you go to the Concord Fight?”

“What did I go for?” the old man replied, subtly rephrasing the historian’s question to drain away its determinism.

The interviewer tried again. “… Were you oppressed by the Stamp Act?” he asked.

“I never saw any stamps,” Preston answered, “and I always understood that none were ever sold.”

“Well, what about the tea tax?”

“Tea tax, I never drank a drop of the stuff, the boys threw it all overboard.”

“But I suppose you have been reading Harrington, Sidney, and Locke about the eternal principle of liberty?”

“I never heard of these men. The only books we had were the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’ psalms and hymns and the almanacs.”

“Well, then, what was the matter?”

“Young man, what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had governed ourselves and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”

Paul Revere’s Ride, by David Hackett Fischer

Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the clove-hoofed animals, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the quiescently frozen dessert and of all frozen aftermeal treats you may eat, but absolutely not in the living room. Of the juices and other beverages, yes, even of those in sippy cups, you may drink, but not in the living room, neither may you carry such therein. Indeed, when you reach the place where the living room carpet begins, of any food or beverage there you may not eat, neither may you drink.

But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then you may eat in the living room.

Lamentations of the Father, by Ian Frazier

For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert. But of the unclean plate, the laws are these: If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas, with each bit consisting of not fewer than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert. But if you eat a lesser number of peas, and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert; and if you eat the peas, yet leave the potatoes uneaten, you shall not have dessert, no, not even a small portion thereof. And if you try to deceive by moving the potatoes or peas around with a fork, that it may appear you have eaten what you have not, you will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and you shall have no dessert.

Lamentations of the Father, by Ian Frazier

Bite not, lest you be cast into quiet time. Neither drink of your own bathwater, nor of bathwater of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, nor against any building; nor eat sand.

Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape? And hum not that humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, you will drive me to madness. Nor forget what I said about the tape.

Lamentations of the Father, by Ian Frazier

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Bird Every Bird

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Roger

It was an overcast, chilly, unprepossessing day, and I had no greater ambitions than to crash for the evening. I drove past the pond on Black Squirrel Creek and saw a small flock of geese gathered around the one tiny opening in the ice. It occurred to me that some of them seemed rather small, and I wondered if they might be Cackling Geese.

Thirty yards further along, I turned onto another street. I spotted another small flock of geese walking along the sidewalk next to an office building. I thought, “Those are definitely Canadas.” But the split second that it took me to glance at them was enough for me to notice that one looked different. I made a quick U-turn and saw that I was right. A juvenile Greater White-fronted Goose was at the tail-end of the parade.

The geese walked across a parking lot and were foraging on a lawn.

I walked slowly to get to where the little sunlight poking through the overcast was behind me and took photos for about 10 minutes. Greater White-fronted Geese aren’t so rare in El Paso County that birders will come from Connecticut to see one. But they are rare enough that sightings are added to the El Paso County Rare Bird Report. I’m sure the drivers of the cars passing me on Voyager thought I was a moron for taking photos of neighborhood geese, but then, they won’t get their names on the Rare Bird Report, will they?

Postscript: Next morning

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