Ruddy irruption

[Eric DeFonso]

Hi all,

Firstly I want to thank George Steele in Norwood for his generous hospitality and warmth in allowing visitors to his property for viewing the remarkable 1st-state-record Ruddy Ground Dove (RUGD). I saw it yesterday with several others, and although the bird wasn't entirely cooperative, we all got unequivocal views at one point or another, if not terrific photos. Mine sure weren't.

I mainly wanted to raise awareness that this bird appears to be the northernmost wanderer of a bunch of RUGDs that have been irrupting into Arizona and even southern California over the past month or so. The eBird map below shows sightings for RUGD in Sept and Oct of this year. This is quite unusual, even for Arizona, in both quantity and distribution. They've been found even as far north into Arizona as Meteor Crater in the past week. And one of the locations in Arizona in western Maricopa County has had as many as 8 individuals tallied at a time.

So although it would still be extremely unlikely for there to be any more Ruddy Ground Doves in Colorado than the one at George's feeders at this time, you wouldn't be entirely crazy to look for them right now.

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Eric DeFonso
near Lyons, Boulder County, CO

[Brandon]

I would guess this Ruddy Ground Dove is the furthest north one ever in the United States too.  Anyone know of further north records anywhere?  Pretty amazing find for San Miguel  County, I think some people thought one could show up in CO some day.  I figured the extreme SW corner of Colorado, maybe Cortez or Durango area.   

Brandon Percival
Pueblo West, CO

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[Eric DeFonso]

BTW, I realize now that the correct alpha code for Ruddy Ground Dove is RGDO, not RUGD as I had it in my original post. I forgot that the recent lopping-off of the hyphen in the name (it used to be Ground-Dove) meant that the way that the alpha code for this species is created also changed.

Eric

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Eric DeFonso
near Lyons, Boulder County, CO

On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 10:37 AM William H Kaempfer <William....@colorado.edu> wrote:

Eric,

 

Northernmost and easternmost for this fall, northernmost ever.  There seems to be quite a range expansion going on and I wonder if RGDO will get moved to a Code 3 bird soon.

 

I’m sure Pueblo Reservoir will get one on their CBC.

 

Bill

 

 

 

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Eric DeFonso
near Lyons, Boulder County, CO

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