In much nicer weather (about 50 degrees, no wind) twenty-one birders banded together and sought the elusive Greater Roadrunner on Dinosaur Ridge. We joined seven other expectant birders at the usual spot on the closed off roadway of Alameda Avenue (directions to follow). After arriving on the hill at about 11:40 and enduring a 50 minute nearly bird-free vigil, one of our party, Kathanne Lynch, who had taken station on the eastern side of the ridge, called on her two-way, "The Roadrunner is over here!" At a sedate pace (well, really a mid-speed jog) we got to the east side, to join Kathanne on the road (for reference, just below the porta-potty). The bird played hide and seek among the mountain mahogany, but after glimpses by some of us, we were all able to see it well as it foraged up and over the ridge to the west side. This prompted a return of the crew to the original site where we had waited so patiently earlier.
Then the bird put on a real show! It foraged on the slope, sunned itself from atop a rocky outcropping, took a couple of flaps and glided across the road (quite near us) to the grassy hillside below the road, but not down to Morrison Road. There we continued to observe it, for a total of 45 minutes from the first glimpse. It did a maneuver that I had read about, but never seen before, when it stood facing away from the sun and lifted its back feathers to expose its very black skin to the sun to warm up. We saw it foraging and catching insects of some kind. Bill Schmoker will be sending excellent photos to Dave Leatherman for ID and I expect that he will post some on his excellent web site. We were all captivated by this relatively close and prolonged inspection. ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEXT FIELD TRIP Date: TOMORROW, Sunday, January 15th Time: 11:30 AM MST Place: Stegosaurus parking lot (SW corner of I-70 intersection with Morrison Road, aka road 93) Leader: Cheryl Teuton. PLEASE contact her at teu...@earthlink.net or at 303 912-3341 if you plan to go with the group. If you go alone, you risk taking up 1 of the 6 valuable parking slots at Alameda. Plan: We will again need to shuttle folks down to the tiny parking lot at Alameda and Morrison Road. PLEASE do not park at that site. Bikers were parked there and today we found only 3 slots open for all of the large group, thus the need to run the shuttle. Motivation: The roadrunner seems to have established a *pattern* of appearing between 12:15 PM and 1:00 PM on the slopes near the Alameda hairpin turn, most reliably on calm, sunny afternoons. It probably pays to get there a little early in case it does not have a good timepiece. It probably pays to check both the east and west slopes and have 2-way phone contact between parties on either side. It is possibly sufficient just to watch the west side, as sight lines and photography are better from there. Whenever it has been seen on the east side mid-day, it walks over the ridge. I think that all will agree that the bird does not give a Beep, Beep about us birders (or the joggers, bikers, tourists who are frequent the area). It feeds near where humans are prevalent. We have not been disturbing the bird as it goes about its daily foraging circuit. Joe Roller, Denver I will lead another group there on Monday or Tuesday if there is enough interest. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
