Park County Jan. 27

[Hugh Kingery]

Inspired by David Suddjian's impressive list of Park County birds from Jan. 25, Urling & I drove up there yesterday. We live an hour farther away than David, and didn't get up quite as early as he did anyway.

We saw twice as many Elk as we did Rosy-Finches; in fact twice as many Elk as all birds. A herd of 150 or so sat & grazed in a field a mile or so west of Jefferson, and a smaller group of 10 a mile or two west of that.

At Jefferson (10:10 am) we saw 30 Rosy-Finches, more Gray-crowned than Brown-capped, and no Blacks. We also saw Tom McConnell & wife, who had come over from Glenwood Springs, also spurred by David's glowing report. They saw only half a dozen Rosy-Finches here. We followed them to Goshawk Rd., way south on Elkhorn Road, where we saw 30 Rosy-Finches, farther away, harder to ID. Return visits to Jefferson at 12:25 & 14:00 yielded 5 Rosy-finches (both species). We also saw at Jefferson both species of chickadees, one American Tree Sparrow, some House Sparrows, magpies, and ravens.

Hugh & Urling Kingery
Franktown, CO