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Dawn Chorus: Colorado (Not in my) Backyard Birds [1]

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Date: 2024-06-30  

Hello birders, twitchers, twitchy birders, bitchy twirlers, and easterners looking to learn about the rectangular states.

This is the first of a two-part series showcasing the avian highlights from several trips to Colorado over the past few years. Today we’re exploring the Front Range cities, the foothills, and the state’s most popular attraction. In two weeks we’ll visit the stunning scenery of the Western Slope.

Colorado — nicknamed the “Centennial State” because it takes 100 years to save up for a down payment on a house there — has been a favorite vacation spot of mine for more than 40 years. While growing up in sweltering Tucson without the resources to fly, its gorgeous southwestern corner was a convenient destination for a cool-in-August roadtrip. Now, as an adult living in Texas, I’ve become a cliche. Approximately 18 gazillion Texans descend upon the state every summer and ski season, a fact not lost on the occasionally grumpy locals.

Car windows I spotted in Crested Butte (left) and Denver (right).

Also, the state’s explosive growth has brought the usual space and resource challenges, and the backlash to them has given parts of the state a reputation for NIMBYism. Fear not, Coloradans — until I get an inheritance from a previously unknown relative, my plan to retire there is a long shot. But I have seen 115 of their bird species — and, as you’ll see, I’ve been treated well by the friendly and generous birding community there (none of whom had nasty window stickers).

From the top of Pikes Peak, the only 14,000-ft+ mountain in the U.S. to which you can drive to the top.

From the vantage point that inspired America the Beautiful’s lyrics — the top of 14,115-foot Pikes Peak — you can see both of the state’s song-worthy ecoregions: the purple mountain majesties and the fruited plain. To be more granular, there are six major life zones in Colorado: semi-desert shrublands, plains, foothills, montane, sub-alpine, and alpine. As is common in the West, elevation is the biggest differentiating factor.

CAPITAL CITY

Most of the state’s population lives where the eastern plains meet the foothills of the Rockies, as do a large variety of mid-elevation birds (Colorado has no low elevations, bottoming out at the Kansas border at more than 3000 ft.). One of the best birding hotspots in the Denver area lies in the plains habitat: the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Its incongruous name reflects its evolution from the place where U.S. chemical weapons were manufactured — including napalm, mustard gas, white phosphorous, and sarin, along with various pesticides — to a thriving wildlife habitat protected permanently from encroaching development.

Bison are the big draw for non-birders at RMANWR

In February of last year, I flew to Denver for two nights to see a rock concert. The show didn’t even start until 9 p.m., so naturally I pretended I was 30 years younger and got up at 5 a.m. that morning to go birding. I wanted to visit RMA for the first time, but I didn’t know if it was feasible without a car. So I cold-emailed one of the state’s most prominent birders (Ted Floyd, editor of Birding Magazine) to ask. He told me you need a car — and then, amazingly, he offered to meet me there and drive me around all morning. We saw a great selection of prairie birds like western meadowlarks and northern shrikes. He also helped me get four lifers. A horned lark:

Rough-legged hawk:

Ferruginous hawk:

Iron Man (or woman?)

And a golden eagle:

Continuing the theme of [metal element in adjective form] [raptor].

It’s on the crossbeam of the pole, trust me. Or actually, trust Ted — he texted me while I was napping (I’m not stupid, nor 20, so I did rest before the concert) after he processed his photos to confirm that it was, in fact, a golden eagle. This was a great way to get my 700th lifer.

Closer to the center of town, City Park is a popular park with a couple of lakes and a beautiful view of downtown and the Rockies. The lake attracts lots of geese, including Canada and snow, and a gregarious bald eagle (see the cover photo) that hunts them. I also saw hooded and common mergansers, the first common goldeneye I’ve ever seen in North America, and my final lifer of the trip:

Cackling goose

SPRING(S)FIELD

Moving south along the front range to the western edge of the Colorado Springs area, we find the lovely town of Manitou Springs, in the foothills of Pikes Peak.

My wife discovered Manitou Springs, via a friend’s recommendation, because she needed a quick getaway after the trauma of watching Roe v. Wade be overturned. Let’s just say we’re not childless by choice, and Texas’ immediate criminalization of high-risk pregnancies forced her to relive our most tragic episodes over and over. Anyhow, the town was a great discovery.

Manitou is known for having a historic and vibrant downtown and for the nearby Manitou Incline, a notoriously difficult hike that my wife makes me do every time we visit. Meanwhile, the outlying areas feature a world-famous bug museum and several wildlife refuges housing a wide variety of habitats.

One of the refuges southwest of town is the Aiken Canyon Preserve, a Nature Conservancy property in an ecologically diverse foothills setting. As their website tells it, “The preserve is composed of a mosaic of habitat types, including shrublands, tallgrass prairie meadows, pinyon juniper woodlands and mixed coniferous woodlands.” By a stroke of good luck, the Aiken Audubon Society — which covers the Colorado Springs area — was doing a bird walk one of the mornings of our visit last summer, and we joined them at some ungodly hour in a steady rainstorm. The guides were awesome, and everyone in the group was super friendly. They helped me find a long-sought lifer: Virginia’s warbler. I also got my first plumbeous vireo:

We need a funny caption after the last one. Hmmm. . .I don’t know. . .codswallop, goobledygook, Sheboygan. . .I can’t think of anything right now.

Although photographs were limited by the rain, we saw lots of foothill specialties like ash-throated flycatcher, warbling vireo, Woodhouse’s scrub-jay, bushtit, western bluebird, and black-headed grosbeak.

The best yield from that outing, however, was indirect. The guides were buzzing about a super rarity that had been spotted at a reservoir southeast of Colorado Springs: an arctic loon (!). So, the next morning — the 20th anniversary of the day we met — my wife and I set out for Big Johnson Reservoir. When we arrived, a swarm of birders was camped at the shore with their spotting scopes. One let us look as soon as we arrived, and we earned an unlikely lifer. I did want a picture, but the distance was formidable. Here it is, near the far shore just left of the little tree:

We didn’t see any woodpeckers at Big Johnson, so whatever joke I would have made about it will have to wait for another trip.

What, your old eyes can’t see it? Sheesh. Ok, here is a high-quality zoom-in:

Seriously, though, thank goodness for the scopes. We also got two grebe lifers — western and Clark’s — in a single shot:

Did I mention, thank goodness for the scopes? We also took a walk around the reservoir’s prairie habitat between downpours and saw some old friends:

Western meadowlark, tree swallow

The Springs/Pikes Peak area has a tremendous number of great hiking trails. On one hike (without the camera, of course) I managed to see three MacGillivray’s warblers. This was notable because I had just gained that lifer a couple of days prior in Ouray. I saw lots of western tanagers on another hike:

Plus a white-breasted nuthatch, notably doing something besides creeping down a tree:

One of the area’s most popular attractions — technically in Colorado Springs, but almost walkable from downtown Manitou — is the Garden of the Gods. Like its Denver-area sister Red Rocks Park, the Garden is a beautiful collection of red sandstone outcrops.

The plural “Gods” is an interesting twist in the Evangelical capital of the U.S.

Mrs. Cardinal taking some liberties with the park’s 10-foot climbing limit. Or maybe it’s just distortion from my phone’s wide-angle lens — but I like the outlaw story better.

The park contains more spotted towhees than I’ve ever seen anywhere, often singing prominently on junipers:

White-throated swifts were also abundant, which made for an easy last lifer of my 2023 trip. The Garden is also known for prairie falcons, which I was quite excited to photograph:

Neat, huh? Now that I’m back in Texas, though, I should zoom in to make sure:

Oh no, no. . .what? Oh well.

KRUSTYLAND

The third-busiest U.S. national park is just a 90-minute drive from the third-busiest U.S. airport, a convenience that makes it the most popular attraction in Colorado. Rocky Mountain National Park sits on the Rockies’ Eastern Slope northwest of Boulder, abutting the Continental Divide. Unlike some national parks, it is bordered by a convenient town — Estes Park — with plenty of affordable lodging and other amenities. The scenery makes braving the crowds worthwhile:

July 4, 2013. Not the best time to visit the park, but that’s when my terminally ill best friend was in town.

Dream Lake in May 2023. Over the summer, you can hit five lakes on this trail — but in spring it’s mostly snowed over.

While our visit in May of 2023 came too early for some of the higher-elevation hikes, the relatively low meadows (“relatively” meaning 8000-9000 ft.) like Upper Beaver Meadows and the Cub Lake Trail provided opportunities to see montane and sub-alpine birds. I got some good lifers with little effort, like a western wood-pewee, Williamson’s sapsucker:

Williamson’s sapsucker is one of the birds whose name will need to change as eponymic bird names are phased out. It’s named after 19th-Century naturalist and notorious racist Fredward M. Sapsucker.

And my first-ever Boink Lifer, American three-toed woodpecker:

There are 12 toes in this pic.

Two other lifers were harder to earn — not because they were tough to see, but because they were unfamiliar empid flycatchers.

Hammond’s flycatcher (left), dusky flycatcher (right)

I did my due diligence, though: I got good pics from a variety of angles, recorded each one calling, and then put Merlin and my guidebooks to work. Even with all that, I still asked for expert help on Facebook. After all, I’m a political scientist, not an ornithologist. When the book says “primary projections,” I hear “New Hampshire” rather than “wing feathers.” Sure enough, I managed to see a Hammond’s and a dusky flycatcher.

Other sightings included this mountain bluebird:

A beautiful woman standing in the rain, and no one brought her a coat. I guess chivalry is dead.

and the always conspicuous Steller’s jay:

“I would have brought her a coat.”

Finally, I present an artifact that I couldn’t resist buying:

Gay cardinals usually appear on Christmas and Valentine cards — but apparently they live year-round in regions where cardinals don’t exist.

My wife and I were laughing at the geographical gaffe when a young worker at the gift shop said, “actually, we do get cardinals here.” I said, “oh, like in the far eastern part of the state?” And she replied, “no, I’ve seen them in this area.” She was so confident that I didn’t have the heart to correct her. But eBirders have spotted a cardinal in El Paso County about once every four years — so if she’s aware of a native flock somewhere, I’m sure they’d be quite interested.

That’s it for today. In two weeks, I’ll take you to the state’s spectacular Western Slope, home of grosbeaks, grossincome, and perhaps the grossest U.S. House rep.

Your turn! Tell us about this week’s sightings, sitings, and citings.

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