This morning I found the time to run my Boulder County BBS route which runs from the west of the old Mapleton Hospital in Boulder to Gold Hill, Ward and Beaver Lake Reservoir. As such, it runs through many life zones from lower foothills through a variety of forest types and ends by a large (approximately ½ mile square, but hardly ever birded) mountain reservoir. Overall I recorded 56 species, all of which had been observed before.
Of note on this route is that about ¼ of the stops show burn damage from the Four Mile Canyon fire of 2010 (the previous record-holder for number of homes destroyed in a Colorado fire). Today, about 21 months after the fire, my birdiest stops by far were in the fire area. Interestingly there was not only abundance but diversity with 10-12 species typical. As a generalization, I would also say that some lower life-zone birds were drawn up to the burn area, e.g. Virginia's Warbler and Lazuli Bunting both just below Gold Hill. But then again I had four flying Band-tailed Pigeons in Salida where as I have never had them other than in Ward (where there were two at the feeders on the low end of town) before. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- 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.
