Colorado Big Day 5/9

[Andrew Bankert]

The Saturday before my finals and Mike McCloy’s field season started seemed like the perfect time to try a midnight to midnight big day as part of eBird’s new Global Big Day effort.  This is what happened to the best of our knowledge.

Mike picked me up shortly after 9 PM Friday evening in Fort Collins and we drove down to Denver while battling a torrential downpour.  After a very late dinner/very early breakfast we found a spot to park for City Park around 11:55 and ran out to the egret colony where we flushed a Spotted Sandpiper shortly before midnight.  Luckily we would find more of those.  As the clock hit midnight, we spotted the staked out Cattle Egret nest and added several other birds to our list including our only Black-crowned Night-Heron of the day.  After 2 minutes and 8 species we found ourselves driving through downtown Denver in the early morning rain.  Around 12:30 we tried to spot a roosting Greater White-fronted Goose at Centennial Park with our car headlights.  Unfortunately the bird was hiding from us and we anxiously drove to another viewing spot where we had to get out in the rain and use a spotlight and our scope to find the roosting goose.  We also picked up our first American Avocets of the day.  Next we tried for Eastern Screech-Owl at Bear Creek Park and failed due to the rain and traffic noise.  From there we added the nesting Bald Eagle at Marston Reservoir and tried for the Common Loon at Hairrman Lake.  We did not see the loon, but we heard our only Pied-billed Grebes and Song Sparrow for the day.  The high stage of the river made hearing Common Poorwill nearly impossible in the foothills near Morrison so we decided to leave for our dawn spot in South Park around 1:30.

The weather was very pleasant for our drive up to the mountains, but once we started owling we traded the early morning rain for a snowstorm.  The snow combined with the flowing river along Weston Pass Road made owling difficult, but we did manage Great Horned and Northern Saw-Whet Owl.  This was the closest our owl diversity would come to our goose diversity during the course of the day.  We had no clue where to go for dawn along Weston Pass Road, so we added birds by driving and stopping every half mile and listening for a minute or two.  After a few stops we realized that many of the mountain birds had not returned for the summer.  During our two hour struggle we did pick up several mountain species including Fox Sparrow, Sage Thrasher, Cassin’s Finch, Red-naped Sapsucker, and Steller’s Jay.  The Ruby-crowned Kinglets were singing  all over the place but other species we had hoped for including Gray Jay, American Three-toed Woodpecker, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and Red-breasted Nuthatch were nowhere to be found.  We decided early on that our route should focus on migrants and we left the Weston Pass Road area before 7 AM.  A quick stop at Buffalo Creek Reservoir produced our only Common Merganser and Ring-necked Ducks of the day and gave us our first Lesser Scaup and Bufflehead.  Our last stop in South Park was Antero Reservoir.  Although it wasn’t spectacular we did add several key species including Common Loon, Peregrine Falcon, Bank Swallow, California and Bonaparte’s Gulls, and most of the expected waterbirds.  There were very few shorebirds visible from the south entrance, but we did pick up Spotted Sandpiper. 

From South Park we headed towards Canon City where the weather was fairly nice.  We made a few stops along the way and picked up Pygmy Nuthatch, Red Crossbill, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Dusky Flycatcher.  Closer to Canon City Mike was feeling a little queasy and needed a quick pull off.  Luckily for us that pull off  gave us Virginia’s Warbler, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and Gray Flycatcher.  Our first stop in the Canon City area was the Royal Gorge where we picked up White-throated Swift before the overlook, so we turned around and tried for PJ birds forgetting that we still needed Rock Wren.  The PJ birds cooperated very quickly.  Within five minutes of getting out of the car to listen for a possible Bushtit, we had added Bushtit, Juniper Titmouse, Black-throated Gray Warbler, and Plumbeous Vireo to our list.  A quick stop at Tunnel Drive gave us our first Lesser Goldfinch, Yellow Warbler, and Yellow-breasted Chat but no Rufous-crowned Sparrow.  After that stop we ran over to Sell’s Pond along the Arkansas River where we found some breeders including Black-capped Chickadee, Eastern Phoebe, and Lazuli Bunting but did not find any migrants.  At this point in the day we were banking on migrants on the eastern plains and just trying to pick up breeding species as quickly as possible to maximize our time out east and hope to hit 180 for the day.  We ran through Lincoln Street to pick up Lewis’s Woodpecker (one of two birds we took a picture of during the day) then out to the brush piles on Grandview where we saw Scaled Quail and Clay-colored Sparrow.  A quick stop along Mackenzie Ave over the Arkansas failed to produce Black Phoebe which we were still missing.  We could feel the excitement of the plains in our near future, but we took advantage of the nice weather to pick up some of our remaining breeding species including Casssin’s Sparrow, Canyon Towhee, and Black-throated Sparrow south of Florence. 

Pueblo didn’t have a whole lot to offer us and we only made a few quick stops. Our first was an unplanned stop for Rock Wren in some rock outcroppings south of Pueblo Reservoir once we realized that we did not have a great shot at that species anywhere on our remaining route.  Less than thirty seconds after we stopped we were headed towards the area below the dam with a singing Rock Wren in the bag. Our next goal was to find the Osprey nest.  I guess the Ospreys did not want us to find their nest since there were two perched at the Fish Hatchery and we did not need to go any further.  A quick stop at the Valco Ponds in hopes of Black Phoebe failed to produce, but we did pick up our only Warbling Vireo of the day.   We decided to skip looking for White-winged Dove with hopes of picking them up out on the plains and made a quick stop for Green Heron at Pueblo City Park.  The heron did not want to be included on our list and we decided to head to the plains after one of our few spots of the day without any new birds.  We hit I-25 before 1:30 with 147 species.

From Pueblo we headed east to the Lake Meredith Feed Lot pond where we were greeted by high winds but still managed to added 7 new birds including Dunlin, Semipalmated Sandpiper, and Marbled Godwit.  I demonstrated my ability to pay attention to large out-of-place white things by noticing a Snow Goose hanging out on the edge of the pond.  From there we went down to Lake Holbrook where Forster’s Tern was our only new addition.  Lake Cheraw paid off big for us with 9 new birds including a Greater Yellowlegs, some Northern Pintail, and a fairly early White-rumped Sandpiper.  On the drive towards John Martin Reservoir a Red-headed Woodpecker was nice enough to fly by us.  Approaching John Martin, we stopped at some marshes where Mike picked up a Marsh Wren and while we were getting ready to play a tape so I could get it a Black Rail called from the marsh!  I thought Mike was playing a tape for that when we heard it.  A Blue Jay flew over on the way out for bird # 170.  A quick stop at Van’s Grove did not give us any new birds and we quickly left to head to John Martin.  After driving over the dam we decided against trying to find birds along the southern shore due to poor road conditions and just headed to Lake Hasty.  Before we arrived at the trees we decided to check the lake and were rewarded with 2 newly arrived Least Terns and a Cackling Goose (the other bird we photographed during the day).  Despite the wind, Lake Hasty was awesome and we picked up Rose-breasted Grosbeak before leaving the car.  American Redstart, Swainson’s Thrush, Summer Tanager, and Orchard Oriole were added and we picked up Hairy Woodpecker that we hadn’t caught up with yet.  We were optimistic about adding Hudsonian Godwit to our impressive run, but he field had dried up by the time we arrived. 

With about two hours left of daylight we were headed to Lamar with high hopes of more migrants and picking up Mississippi Kite added to that excitement.  The Lamar Community College woods were a major disappointment and the birds were very difficult to find.  We missed Northern Cardinal but were able to scrap out Tennessee Warbler and Cordilleran Flycatcher.  Willow Valley was much nicer to us with a speedy pickups of Red-bellied Woodpecker and White-winged Dove.  As we sped north towards Temple Grove we added Burrowing Owl and Wild Turkey.  Despite the time being after 7 PM, Temple Grove was very birdy and we quickly added Northern Waterthrush and worked to pick up Hermit Thrush, MacGillivray’s Warbler, and Lincoln’s Sparrow.  As it was getting dark we picked up White-throated Sparrow for bird # 195 and then headed north for one last effort to push towards 200.  We couldn’t find a good way to get to Nee Gronda Reservoir from the west side, so we continued to Nee Sopah in the fading light.  On the drive in, Mike’s sharp ears picked up a singing Grasshopper Sparrow.  The sparrow continued to sing while we made a last ditch effort for Blue Grosbeak.  No grosbeaks decided to call for us, but we did pick up Semipalmated Plover.  Before it got too dark to scope I noticed another white blob that looked out of place, and it was a goose that was smaller than a nearby white-cheeked goose.  I thought I remembered a report of a Snow Goose in the area, but something looked off about the bird so we ran up to get a closer look before it got too dark to see.  The closer look confirmed our suspicions that the bird was tiny, had a short bill, and no visible grin patch and led us to call it a Ross's Goose.  If anyone has any photos or field observations of this bird, that would be great, since we were going on 36+ hours without sleep and looking through scopes after the sun had set.  We are still unsure what the white-cheeked goose is since it seems to be close to the boarder of Canada/Cackling.  We were happy with our total of 198, but after having dinner with Nick Komar’s group we got motivation to try for 200 which happened after the 45 minutes it took to add Sora and Virginia Rail in the howling wind. 

We spent the night at Van’s Grove where we woke up to a singing Blue Grosbeak on Sunday morning and found 3 other species we missed the previous day (Black-and-white Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, and Northern Bobwhite).  We further delayed returning to reality by making a stop at Chico Basin Ranch where we picked up a few migrants we missed on Saturday including Wilson’s Warbler, Gray Catbird, and Cassin’s Vireo. 

Throughout the trip Mike eBirded all of our new day birds and tried to create complete checklists whenever possible, so we should have had some good data for the Global Big Day.  This sure was a good way to see a lot of birds in the very limited time grad school allows for.

 

Good Birding!

Andy Bankert

Fort Collins, CO