Colorado Sesquicentennial Celebration at The Arsenal, Aug. 1, 2026
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Ted Floyd
Aug 2, 2026, 2:35:34 PM (yesterday) Aug 2
to Colorado Birds
Hope everybody had a festive Sesquicentennial Day yesterday, Sat., Aug. 1. I sure did. With birding buds Wanda Kane-Harris, Elena Klaver, Pete Christiansen, Felice Lyons, Isaac Boardman, Archer Silverman, Sebrina Brooks, Michael Ward, Trevor Sleight, and Tykee James, I spent the long hot day at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, Adams Co., the Crown Jewel of Centennial State birding & nature study. Proof-of-life photo:
We started dark and early, outside the refuge gate, where Tykee had been stationed since the commencement of astronomical dawn. Go figure. The rest of us got there decadently late, during nautical dawn. Anyhow, there was a modest flight of NFC-detected eastbound chipping sparrows on their midsummer nocturnal molt-migration to the High Plains. Also a great horned owl and a common nighthawk.
Then it was off to Big Bluestem, which did not disappoint. We listened in awestruck wonder to the fluttery, far-carrying flight calls of a couple of upland sandpipers on VisMig. Seen-only was a hulking long-billed curlew flying in from First Creek Open Space, where the species may have summered. Also two loggerhead shrikes and six sage thrashers. And this: an exact tally of 1,278 rock pigeons, painstakingly counted by Pete & Archer. The Arsenal Pigeon Fly-Out, which happens every morning of the year, never ceases to mesmerize.
Next was Upper Derby Woods, where the highlight was a vocal red-headed woodpecker. Also some forest birds, easy to miss at The Arsenal: downy woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, and blue jay. Four Brewer sparrows, doubtless a little migratory assemblage, were moving through a patch of sandsage, Artemisia filifolia, there.
Where were we again? 😁 Ah yes. The Lower Ladora marshes, with two Wilson snipes, two ospreys, and a blue-gray gnatcatcher. Remember that old ad campaign?— "This is a good place for a stickup!" The boardwalk at Lower Ladora could use a whole shipment of Air Wicks. I believe all of us incurred permanent olfactory bulb damage there. But the odes didn't seem to mind. The blue dashers, Pachydiplax longipennis, were legion:
The nearby Havana ponds had solitary sandpipers, one each, natch, at each pond. Also some nice landbirds, despite the advanced hour and considerable heat: black-chinned hummingbird, spotted towhee, yellow-breasted chat, and four lazuli buntings. A cool robber fly was this marauder (I'm not making that up), genus Proctacanthus:
No new species at Upper Ladora, but we boosted our tallies there: 15 more peebie jeebies, 25 more double-crested cormorants engaged in desperate gular flutter, 10 more snowy egrets (43 for the visit), and another western cattle-egret (5 total). Some weird, bleached, worn, sun-blasted, subadult LWHG defied Archer's noblest attempts at conjecture. It was getting late...
But we'd gotten our second wind now! The wildlife drive was next up. It was Colorado Day, recall, so we marked the occasion with careful study of all the state bird lark buntings along the route. Here's a hot female:
And here's a male against the backdrop of the Denver skyline, awash in haze and heat shimmer:
We started dark and early, outside the refuge gate, where Tykee had been stationed since the commencement of astronomical dawn. Go figure. The rest of us got there decadently late, during nautical dawn. Anyhow, there was a modest flight of NFC-detected eastbound chipping sparrows on their midsummer nocturnal molt-migration to the High Plains. Also a great horned owl and a common nighthawk.
Then it was off to Big Bluestem, which did not disappoint. We listened in awestruck wonder to the fluttery, far-carrying flight calls of a couple of upland sandpipers on VisMig. Seen-only was a hulking long-billed curlew flying in from First Creek Open Space, where the species may have summered. Also two loggerhead shrikes and six sage thrashers. And this: an exact tally of 1,278 rock pigeons, painstakingly counted by Pete & Archer. The Arsenal Pigeon Fly-Out, which happens every morning of the year, never ceases to mesmerize.
Next was Upper Derby Woods, where the highlight was a vocal red-headed woodpecker. Also some forest birds, easy to miss at The Arsenal: downy woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, and blue jay. Four Brewer sparrows, doubtless a little migratory assemblage, were moving through a patch of sandsage, Artemisia filifolia, there.
Lower Derby Rez had lowish water and many birds: two wood ducks, a Mexican duck x mallard intergrade, six lesser yellowlegs, four Baird sandpipers, two western cattle-egrets, and two uncommon violent-green swallows among the more expected species. Also a Zak Hepler sighting.
Across the way, at Rod & Gun Club Pond, which really needs a better name: broad-tailed hummingbird, orchard oriole, and blue grosbeak. And two non-avian highlights: the long-awaited distribution & mass consumption of Felice's famous chocolate chip cookie bars; and the obtaining of unprecedented audio documentation of the complex sonations of Tetraopes femoratus, the red-femured milkweed borer, a spectacular cerambycid. Here ya go:
The intricate squiggles from 6 kHz down to about 2 kHz are the song of the beetle, and the steady band up around 8 kHz is the song of two Allard ground crickets, Allonemobius allardi. Our motto: "If it has protoplasm, we iNat it."
Including plants. August isn't exactly high season for prairie wildflowers, but this lone inflorescence—just the one!—of Lygodesmia juncea, the rush skeletonplant, was a holdout from earlier in the season:
Including plants. August isn't exactly high season for prairie wildflowers, but this lone inflorescence—just the one!—of Lygodesmia juncea, the rush skeletonplant, was a holdout from earlier in the season:
Where were we again? 😁 Ah yes. The Lower Ladora marshes, with two Wilson snipes, two ospreys, and a blue-gray gnatcatcher. Remember that old ad campaign?— "This is a good place for a stickup!" The boardwalk at Lower Ladora could use a whole shipment of Air Wicks. I believe all of us incurred permanent olfactory bulb damage there. But the odes didn't seem to mind. The blue dashers, Pachydiplax longipennis, were legion:
The nearby Havana ponds had solitary sandpipers, one each, natch, at each pond. Also some nice landbirds, despite the advanced hour and considerable heat: black-chinned hummingbird, spotted towhee, yellow-breasted chat, and four lazuli buntings. A cool robber fly was this marauder (I'm not making that up), genus Proctacanthus:
No new species at Upper Ladora, but we boosted our tallies there: 15 more peebie jeebies, 25 more double-crested cormorants engaged in desperate gular flutter, 10 more snowy egrets (43 for the visit), and another western cattle-egret (5 total). Some weird, bleached, worn, sun-blasted, subadult LWHG defied Archer's noblest attempts at conjecture. It was getting late...
But we'd gotten our second wind now! The wildlife drive was next up. It was Colorado Day, recall, so we marked the occasion with careful study of all the state bird lark buntings along the route. Here's a hot female:
And here's a male against the backdrop of the Denver skyline, awash in haze and heat shimmer:
Around this time, we realized there was a gaping lacuna on our list, so Pete & I bopped on over to the Commerce City Police Department, just outside the refuge, to twitch Eurasian collared-dove. The things we do for you people. And then the obligatory pit stop at the 7-Eleven by the fortune teller's for Big Gulps of ice cold Hi-C with maximum, really rather unnatural, reflectivity in the 700-nanometer band, and thenceforth to the historic & iconic booze shop at Fairfax & 28th, where this guy was about to fledge:
A Mississippi kite! So cool to see this bird—and its doting parents—but what was perhaps cooler was the cityfolk gathered round to look at the birds through our scopes.
We wound up with 80+ species at The Arsenal & vicinity, and we somehow dipped on American robin. And...oh!—It's time to get ready for "Lafayette Birds!" The event starts at 1pm today, at which time the temp is forecast to be 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe we'll finally add Mississippi kite to the Greater Greenlee checklist today? Well, come on out in a bit under a half-hour and see for yourself!
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder Co.
P. s. Hm. Seems we've already topped the forecast high.
A Mississippi kite! So cool to see this bird—and its doting parents—but what was perhaps cooler was the cityfolk gathered round to look at the birds through our scopes.
We wound up with 80+ species at The Arsenal & vicinity, and we somehow dipped on American robin. And...oh!—It's time to get ready for "Lafayette Birds!" The event starts at 1pm today, at which time the temp is forecast to be 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe we'll finally add Mississippi kite to the Greater Greenlee checklist today? Well, come on out in a bit under a half-hour and see for yourself!
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder Co.
P. s. Hm. Seems we've already topped the forecast high.
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