Park County (Jan 10), Ken Caryl Valley JeffCo (Jan 12)

[David Suddjian]

I made another visit to Park County on Saturday (Jan 10). More of a sampling of things rare for the winter in that county or in good numbers. Lots of Red Crossbills continuing. 4 hardy Bushtits (is that an oxymoron?...apparently not) at Crow Valley Road near Bailey. But the most fun was Rosy-Finches. I've been seeing them at a number of spots in the last couple weeks, but this outing had some good numbers. One house on Main Street (such as it is) in the town of Jefferson had several feeders in plain view from the road and an area with seed placed on the ground outside the front fence. Can't miss it if you go...look for the house behind the store. This yard had a bout 550 Gray-crowned, 145 Brown-capped, and a delightful 17 Blacks. Another swarm was at the town of Como with no apparent connection to a feeder as far as I could see. there I counted 300 Gray-crowned, 100 Brown-capped, and 4 Blacks. At Fairplay there were feeders along Front Street, and the biggest swarm was there, congregating on various roofs and trees and dropping down into a yard where a feeding station was out of view from the road. Estimates of this Fairplay swarm were 950 Gray-crowned, 110 Brown-capped and 12 Blacks.

Elsewhere in Park, there is a cow carcass that is attracting birds along County Road 59, located east of the active ranch that is east of the junction with Mineral Road. Lots of ravens, but of note for Park in winter were 13-14 Bald Eagles, mostly loafing on low rocky hills in the vicinity of the carcass.

I was interested to encounter a lone Black-capped Chickadee at Hartsel. It was the first chickadee I've seen in that wide open town with few trees, but seemed more notable in that it was many miles from areas of the county where (I think) Black-capped is expected, suggesting the bird did a lot of wandering to Hartsel. But then again, everyone wants to get to Hartsel, right?

Around my house today at Ken Caryl Valley a Northern Goshawk made another appearance, and a White-throated Sparrow and Harris's Sparrow visited the feeding stations. Still 30-40 Cassin's Finches.

David Suddjian

Littleton, CO