Nesting Raptors and more, Longmont CO (Boulder/Weld Counties)

[Bill Blackburn]

I meant to post this on Friday, but was anxious to head down to Alamosa County.

The City of Longmont's volunteer raptor monitoring program is under way with many of our Red-tailed Hawks and Great Horned Owls already incubating.  Most, if not all, of our Great Horneds have been on the nest for a month now and should have chicks soon.  We also have 2 pairs of Bald Eagles that have returned this year.  The (presumably) well-known Great Horned Owl nest on the cliffside at Sandstone Ranch District Park (Weld) failed this year.  We had an owl on the cliff incubating as early as Feb 5, but she was off again mid March with no chicks in sight.  The same morning, there were 2 Barn Owls seen at SSR and they continued for about a week but have not been located since.  Out at a property closed to the public, we found a deceased Barn Owl near one of our Great Horned Owl nests that already has chicks.  Additionally, we added our first two Cooper's Hawk nests to the monitoring program last week, with hopefully more to come.  Ospreys are also back on about half of the platforms around town, but no sign of Swainson's Hawks yet.  The heron rookeries are active again, with 46 Great Blue Herons and 2 Great Egrets  counted in one of them early last week.  Rounding out the nesting, we found a pair of Eurasian Collared-doves nest building in an alley last Thursday.

On Friday, we saw our first Turkey Vultures, but they did not appear to be potential residents.  16 of them climbed as high as they could on a thermal before all heading north in a ragged line.  Great-tailed Grackles have been at Union Res for at least a week now, and Common Grackles are showing up all over town, but no sign of Yellow-headed Blackbirds so far.

We don't give out nest locations and our raptor monitoring program is currently full, but we will hopefully have more volunteer birding opportunities in Longmont soon.  Feel free to contact me if you are interested, and I'll hopefully be making an official post about it sometime in the next few weeks.

Bill Blackburn

City of Longmont Open Space

Broomfield, CO