Ira Sanders, John Drummond and I arrived at the Devil's Kitchen Trail at the Colorado National Monument yesterday, 4/13, just after 8 AM. Within 20 minutes a male Black-chinned Sparrow perched facing us in full sun at the top of a nearby juniper tree and sang about every 8-10 seconds for at least ten minutes. It then flew to other nearby tree-top perches and gave us views of the back. Seldom did it disappear into the middle of a shrub and stay silent. At one point it was fussing around in a dead juniper shrub, pecking at branches, and then John observed it carrying nesting material in its beak for a few seconds, I believe, not to another site. This behavior is "NB, nest building, confirmed breeding" according to Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas II criteria. It is lower on the scale than other aspects of confirmed breeding behavior like "ON, occupied nest" or "CF, carrying food". Mesa is the second county with confirmed breeding by Black-chinned Sparrows for Colorado, the other being in 2010 from Southwest Colorado (Montezuma County as I recall). All of this is pending confirmation by the Colorado Bird Records Committee of the CFO. As we were leaving the overly scenic Monument we saw a distant Gambel's Quail near some homes. At the Brewster Ridge site near the Utah State line we saw Sage Sparrows, Sage Thrashers and an Osprey overhead, among other species, like a Townsend's Solitaire. Burrowing Owls were along a nearby road. It seemed to be too early in the year for Scott's Orioles and Gray Vireos. The BCSP was easy to photograph from the approved trails, so there was no need to breech etiquette by charging after it through the shrubs. While we were watching this great bird, we got the word that Cole Wild had heard a second singing male from the Devil's Kitchen Trailhead parking lot. Joe Roller, Denver
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