Hi Birders,
If we just look at summary data - 63 new birds plus some recaptures, lots of species - then 5/14 looks just like 5/13. But, on Tuesday, Amber and her crew caught the birds in less than 3 hours, while our pace was a little more leisurely. There were likely fewer birds around by Wednesday, but they remained active throughout the day. We caught our last bird (a Wilson’s Warbler) as we were finally getting closed about 2:30. A third of the birds we caught were Hermit Thrushes. This is the same species that dominated the numbers when we had the freezing rain/snow last year, except last year it was almost 2 weeks earlier. We don’t normally catch very many HETHs (the average for the 8 years prior to 2013 was 9; 2013 was 39 and 2014 will be slightly more than that), so I think we can assume it is a species that normally passes us by except when forced down by a storm. Don’t know what the 2 week difference means - either they come through over a period of time or they are later this year. The birds we caught seemed frisky, but they had almost no fat. I’m guessing they will be hanging around for a few days to gain the weight they need to continue their migration. The stars of the day were the 4 Violet-green Swallows. We don’t catch swallows very often (the insects they are after have to be flying just right - low and over land. And I think we fail to appreciate how truly gorgeous these birds are because we are usually looking at them as they streak through the sky or are perched really high on a telephone wire. The many different shades of green, violet and blue glisten in the sunlight (as brilliant as Hummers but bigger), and their feathers are unbelievably soft. Here’s the break-down of the 63 (21 species, which may be a record for number of species in 1 day at Chatfield): Least Flycatcher 1 Hammond’s Flycatcher 1 Dusky Flycather 4 Warbling Vireo 1 Violet-green Swallow 4 House Wren 2 Blue-grey Gnatcatcher 3 Hermit Thrush 21 Swainson’s Thrush 2 Orange-crowned Warbler 1 Virginia’s Warbler 2 Yellow Warbler 5 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) 4 MacGillivrey's Warbler 1 Common Yellowthroat 1 Wilson’s Warbler 3 Spotted Towhee 1 Lincoln’s Sparrow 3 White-crowned Sparrow, Gambel’s 1 White-crowned Sparrow, Mountain 1 Brown-headed Cowbird 1 Meredith McBurney Biologist/Bander Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory 303-329-8091 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/BLU405-EAS66332EB922A3F97D1CC361D2360%40phx.gbl. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
