Date: 9/1/26 11:06 am From: DAVID A LEATHERMAN <daleatherman...> Subject: [cobirds] migration activity near Fort Collins (Larimer)
It has been hard to miss animal migration in the Fort Collins area of late.
The CSU students are back in force. The streets are full of cars with 100K on their odometers. The bars and downtown sidewalks are great places to observe "Amateur Hour", as the restaurant staffers refer to it.
Sunday August 30th at Grandview Cemetery, Wilson's Warblers, Townsend's Warblers, Western Wood-Pewees, a few unidentified empids, a flock of 45 Chipping Sparrows (mostly immatures), an Olive-sided Flycatcher, a couple Western Tanagers, a heard-only grosbeak, recently fledged Barn Swallows and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, all screamed, "We're migrating!" or "We're about to migrate for the first time, can't wait".
Back at Grandview Cemetery yesterday, my mission was photographing Townsend's Warbler and Hammond's Flycatcher (which I was all but certain one of yesterday's empids was). No luck. But I did see more migrants: Orange-crowned Warbler exploring weeds enhanced by the ditch company's channelizing of the ditch (and rape of the bank) last spring, juvenile Spotted Towhee, more Wilson's Warblers (eliciting the beginnings of that old feeling I get every fall when they become so numerous you wish to suspend them in an aerial "penalty box" just to reveal what else is out there), more Western Tanagers, one Black-headed Grosbeak, a female MacGillivray's Warbler and a Say's Phoebe. 60ish Canada Geese migrated at 0.1 mph from the cemetery across Laporte Avenue to eat and fight over apples. I had never seen that before.
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Yesterday, as I ate my lunch in the parking lot next to Subway on North College Avenue, a golden-mantled ground-squirrel caught my eye. This denizen of the lower mountains was out of place, to be sure. It explored under the Subway dumpster, then bee-lined straight for my car and appeared underneath my driver's-side window. Then it zoomed straight over to another lone car parked 50 yards to my east. As I tried for a photo, it went up from the car underside into the engine compartment. And then the car drove off, without the ground-squirrel dropping down. My guess is the rodent migrated/hitch-hiked into town in the first place on a car that had been in Poudre Canyon, and then continued it's urban adventure on another.
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At the Hamilton Reservoir Overlook north of Wellington, little birds on migration came across the water n to s in reverse of the way they must over the Gulf of Mexico in spring yearning for sight of the Texas coast. The ones I could identify were all Chipping Sparrows and Wilson's Warblers. Every tree and bush near the Overlook had a migrant or two in it.
I drove my shrike route east of Highway 85 ne of Nunn in hopes of seeing evidence of a second-nesting and some fresh impaling activity. The Pawnee is as green as I have seen it in years. The playas are full. While I saw no shrikes or recent prey displays on the wires, I saw plenty of interesting migrants on the wires and in the available vegetation! The four-winged saltbushes were full of common species in amazing numbers for the prairie. Mostly it was Wilson's Warblers (100+), but there were a few Townsend's Warblers (including one Tony would call "spanky"), Chipping Sparrows, Brewer's Sparrows, Vesper Sparrows, a Lincoln's Sparrow, at least three Hammond's Flycatchers, a Western Wood-Pewee, multiple Sage Thrashers (mostly immatures), a Say's Phoebe and my first Merlin of the season at low elevation.
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From left to right: bright male Townsend's Warbler, Wilson's Warbler and Hammond's Flycatcher (note: bullish head, mostly dark beak, gray head-green back-pale yellow undersides, long primary extension, teardrop eyering).
On Weld CR114 a mile or so east of US85, water is across the road (but drivable). Migrant Killdeers, Greater Yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpipers all frolicked in good numbers.
It has been a great couple of days, thanks for migration, to see changes in my normal patches. As I wrote in my journal this morning, I heard a familiar call but one that was not normal for the apartment complex. It was a Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay, only the second at this location in 30 years (the first was 12 September 2005). Stuff happens. Corvids disperse in autumn. This one must have been waiting for us to turn the calendar to September and it be legal to roam. Overhead I heard a migrating Chimney Swift and an elevational-migrant Red-breasted Nuthatch.
Let's rejoice in the fact Earth isn't completely screwed up and migrations still happen.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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