Boulder County: Winter Wren, etc.

[Ted Floyd]

Hello, Birders.

Whilst Andrew was playing laser tag in Broomfield (huh?) early this Saturday afternoon, Nov. 8, Hannah and I had some time to kill, so we jaunted over to Stearns Lake, barely in Boulder County, where we found a Winter Wren immediately downstream from the bridge over Rock Creek. The bird was vocal, but Rock Creek much more so, so this audio from this afternoon is very noisy:

https://soundcloud.com/ted-floyd/winter-wren

Still, you can hear the distinctive chimp-chimp given frequently throughout the cut.

Winter Wrens are somewhat expected in Boulder County the second week of November. Less expected the second week of November are Allard's ground-crickets. Nevertheless, they were out and about. Here's a recording from Stearns today:

https://soundcloud.com/ted-floyd/allards-ground-cricket

Back to birds. We saw 76 Great-tailed Grackles, mainly males. In recent winters, although not so much the winter of 2013-2014, large numbers of Great-tailed Grackles have roosted at this site.

Just east of the lake, i.e., right below the dam, we pished up a large flock of Gambel's White-crowned Sparrows. A few American Tree Sparrows and Song Sparrows were mixed in with the flock, but nothing of greater interest. Not sure of the legality of walking around in there; the gate is open. Looks excellent for Sedge Wren or Le Conte's Sparrow. Also looks good for a citation from Open Space...

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado