This is a long-overdue report, but I wanted to share an incredible
phenomenon that Will Anderson, Nathan Pieplow, and I observed in Hale,
Colorado this May.
On May 24th we arrived early to the Hale Crossroads eBird hotspot in hopes
of finding some late season migrants. It was a cold day barely reaching
over 50 degrees, with intermittent sprinkles, and fog. We had a fairly
active morning, turning up good numbers of Swainson’s Thrushes, a few
silent Traill’s Flycatchers, a Veery, Northern Waterthrush, some Yellow
Billed Cuckoos, and even a singing male Hooded Warbler, but these are not
the topic of this post.
Oftentimes it seems as though a visit to any open location with trees in
the far eastern part of the state is likely to turn up Orchard Orioles, and
today was no exception. Most parts of the property hosted a few singing
males and small flocks, but we weren’t prepared for what we were about to
witness. As we walked along the county road back to our cars, heading to
our next location, we noticed a small flock of 6–8 passerines flitting
around a modestly sized tree, what species I cannot remember. While we were
trying to get an angle to identify them, suddenly, 10 Orchard Orioles flew
out from the tree, crossed the road, and vanished into the forest—an
impressive sight on its own. However it did not stop there, one by one
Orchard Orioles kept flying out, first it totaled 20, then 30, then 40, 50,
60 not stopping until we had seen 96 Orchard Orioles fly out of the single
tree. As we continued down the road, we began to see and hear even more
Orchard Orioles scattered about that we hadn’t yet counted. By the end of
our visit we had determined that we had come across approximately 145
orchard Orioles at the property. The previous state high count for this
species on eBird was in the 70s, recorded by Steve Mlodinow, an impressive
total in its own right!
I don't really have any conclusion to this story as this was likely the
result of a weather-induced fallout, but I wanted to share the experience
nonetheless. If anyone else has noticed anything like this anywhere else
with this particular species I’d love to hear about it.
Good Birding,
Luke Pheneger
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