Listing Through Life

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.

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.