Prothonotary Warbler at Lake Estes (Larimer) on 9/28, etc.

[Dave Leatherman]

I finally saw the Prothonotary Warbler at the same area of the Matthews/Reeser Sanctuary at the west end of Lake Estes, Estes Park (Larimer) where it was seen yesterday (that is, in a row of birch growing on the south side of the trail (between the trail and the lake shore) about 75 yards west of the pine-clad peninsula).  The view was a good one, but only for a few seconds, about 12:05 this afternoon.  I immediately summoned other birders who were further east along the path and we were unsuccessful at refinding this bird.  I can't even say which direction it went after my short look, but there was a warbler we never identified that went north across the trail in the direction of the creek (toward the area I believe Steve Mlodinow had it a few days ago) that could have been it.   Several other birders looked far and wide for the bird in the AM and, as far as I heard, they were unsuccessful.  Good numbers of Birch Catkin Bug (Kleidocerys resedae) continue at this site and I am confidant they are the answer to all the bird activity in the birch trees at this locale.

 

Not a lot of other birds seen today.  No Wilson's Warblers.  A very few Orange-crowns.  A few dozen Yellow-rumps.  One Ruby-crowned Kinglet.   A few White-crowned and Song Sparrows.  And somebody (Mr. Pollock?) reported a Red-naped Sapsucker near the entrance to the peninsula.  That's about it.

 

In the way of odds and ends:

White-throated Sparrow (1) yesterday at the Denver Zoo (crane habitat in the southwest corner of the property just to the east of the Kookaburras).  I have had them here before and they sometimes overwinter.  At this same spot, I noticed a Yellow Warbler (late) foraging in Northern Hackberry, perhaps indicating the first emergence of the adult psyllids I've suspected anywhere this fall.  Regardless, hatch of nipplegall and blistergall psyllids is imminent, and it would behoove birders to find and check hackberries for songbird migrants over the next month.

 

And just two days ago, I saw several late, completely silent, fast, choppy-flighted Chaetura swifts zooming thru Grandview Cemetery, going generally n to s, at fairly low elevation (below the tree tops).  I seem to see a few low-flying, silent ones like this every fall, long after the local Chimney Swifts have departed.  They are probably Chimney Swifts from south-central Canada or the upper Midwest (US), but I think I've admitting wondering in the past about the possibility these birds could be southbound Vaux Swifts east of their normal path.  Maybe the various banding stations could place a few nets between the tops of adjacent spruce trees and solve the mystery once and for all.  I'm kidding, of course, but short of capturing them going in or out of chimneys/roost trees, how do researchers obtain Chaetura swifts to measure, band, and ID?

 

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins