El Dorado Springs area, Boulder County, June 18

[Ted Floyd]

Hello, everybody. Andrew Floyd and I spent a goodly chunk of yesterday, Sunday, June 18, in the general vicinity of the Fowler Trail, near El Dorado Springs, Boulder County. The yellow-breasted chats were out of this world, totally going at it with their crazy "laser tag" songs when we arrived at the start of astronomical twilight. Here's one going off:

http://tinyurl.com/chat-goes-off

Here he is even more amped up:

http://tinyurl.com/chat-goes-berserk

The common poorwills put on a brilliant show too. One individual circled directly over our heads in the moonlight. It was magical. Then it settled down and started singing. Here are two recordings:

http://tinyurl.com/poorwill-01

http://tinyurl.com/poorwill-02

We were later joined by a group with the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, and we all delighted in sightings of iconic western birds like white-throated swift, plumbeous vireo, Woodhouse scrub-jay, Steller jay, bushtit, pygmy nuthatch, rock wren, Virginia's warbler, MacGillivray warbler, green-tailed towhee, western tanager, black-headed grosbeak, lazuli bunting, Bullock oriole, and lesser goldfinch. Annotated eBird checklist with photos and additional audio here:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37674313

I can't resist noting that the insects up there are wonderful. Here are a few that we saw:

   Western Sculptured Pine Borer, Chalcophora angulicollis

   Aphrodite Fritillary, Speyeria aphrodite

   Western Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio rutulus

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County