Chatfield area and Ken Caryl area Apr 8 (Jefferson/Douglas)

[David Suddjian]

My first Broad-tailed Hummingbird of the season visited my ready-and-waiting feeders at my Ken Caryl Valley home early this morning.

At Chatfield SP the Swim Beach had 38 Franklin's Gulls, 2 Bonaparte's and growing numbers of Western Grebes and Am. White Pelicans. An Audubon's Yellow-rumped Warbler there was my first this season. At the small pond immediately south of the Deer Creek inlet (just upshore from the Swim Beach) there was a singing Eastern Phoebe and 3 Rusty Blackbirds.  (all these were Jeffco)

Plum Creek Nature Area had an early male Common Yellowthroat in the cattail marsh there, and my first of season Swainson's Hawk was soaring off to the south. 

10 Burrowing Owls were in view in the usual area along the west side of Roxborough Road (Douglas CR 3) from 1.2-1.4 miles south of Titan Road. 

White-throated Swifts have returned to the hogback cliffs along Deer Creek, with 16 in view when I stopped there this morning.

This afternoon a flock of 26 Franklin's Gulls passed north over Ken Caryl Valley and  a Ruby-crowned Kinglet visited my yard in the company of the lately resident pair of Bushtits. The latter continue daily and I think they are intent on nesting, but if they have begun I am still without concrete clues. Interestingly, every so often the 2 Bushtits become a foursome.

David Suddjian

Littleton, CO