Louisiana Waterthrush - SE Denver - Belleview and DTC Blvd

[Laura Eley]

Yesterday evening I discovered a Lousiana Waterthrush at Wallace Park. It was still there this morning, if you'd like to go see it!

I had decided to give myself a little personal challenge in May and visit 'unvisited' eBird hotspots, just to give those hotspots some data and attention, and move them over to the 'visited' group for a bit. So my boyfriend and I went on a walk at Wallace park last night. I told him not to bother bringing his camera, as I expected we would just see Robins and Magpies. So he didn't.

In the concrete waterway under Belleview, I spotted a little bird running about in the water and thought, that seems like a special bird for this location. I took a couple pictures with my phone through my binoculars. My first thought was Dipper, but I looked it up in my phone field guides and quickly ruled it out. 

Merlin was no help. It couldn't pick up the little 'cheep' sound it was making. It couldn't figure out what bird was in my photo when I put it through photo ID. I did the step by step ID and got nowhere. A mystery!

I came home and looked through my big field guides at ALL the sandpipers. I finally thought, "well, it's not exactly right, but Spotted Sandpiper seems like the most likely. Maybe it's some kind of morph or juvenile that there isn't a picture of in my guide." 

Posted my photo to the CFO facebook group and discovered it was a waterthrush!! A warbler!? What! I never! 

Then I learned, it's a very rare-for-Colorado Louisiana Waterthrush!! So this morning my boyfriend grabbed his camera and joined a dozen other guys with their cameras under the bridge and we confirmed it is a Louisiana Waterthrush and he got his pictures and wasn't upset anymore about missing getting a picture of a rare bird.

I love learning about birds. Never would I ever have thought to look through the warbler section for this bird! Thank you to the people on the facebook group, the people at the bird this morning, and broadly, the people on this email list who have helped me on this bird and learning about birds and birding in the past. I'm excited to have made this discovery, and it was just because I wanted to bird some 'underbirded' areas this month. And I have learned so much!!! 

[rosanne juergens]

Thank you so much for this great find! Still there this morning til 9 when I left.

Best,

Rosanne Juergens 

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