Black Forest CBC

[Hugh Kingery]

    We who went on the Black Forest CBC despite unwelcoming weather -- from minus 2 degrees F up to a balmy 9 degrees -- enjoyed a larky day. Snow covered the fields and brought a record number of Horned Larks into the roads where we could count them -- the 971 topped the previous high by 200 birds. Among them Aaron Shipe found 4 Lapland Longspurs. Otherwise the count had a fairly high number of birds (2,054), courtesy of the larks, and a low species count (35).
    The pines continue bereft of cones, so we had very low  counts of chickadees/nuthatches/winter finches. I can't offer any information about the effect of the devastating fire -- our count leader, Judy von Ahlefeldt, lost her house to it. In her place, Jeannie Mitchell coordinated the south half of the count (El Paso County).

Hugh Kingery
Franktown, CO