Colorado Summer Week Jun 09—15, 2008
Posted by Brennan Mulrooney
Brennan Mulrooney
Brennan Mulrooney was born and raised in San Diego, California. Growing up, his heart and mind were captured by the ocean. He split his summer days between helping out behi...Related Trips
Our Colorado Summer Week tour has few equals when it comes to visiting a wide variety of habitats in a short period of time. And, of course, when you visit a wide variety of habitats, you can see a great diversity of birds. Add to this some of the most stunning scenery in North America, and you can understand why I look forward to this tour so much every year. Having said that, there are a few birds on this trip that tend to garner the lion's share of attention—three birds that have restricted ranges and tend to be lifers for most of the participants.
The first of these is the Mountain Plover—a shorebird that you're not too likely to encounter while walking on the shore, but then you're not too likely to encounter one while climbing a mountain either, so go figure! This species is in decline, and with a global population estimated at 8,500 birds it is dangerously close to extinction. With this in mind, I always arrive a day early for this tour just to scout for Mountain Plover out on the wide open expanses of the Pawnee National Grassland. This year, a full day's search turned up exactly one. Not especially encouraging. So I was a bit apprehensive as we set out for the Pawnee on the second morning of this year's tour. The day started auspiciously enough, as we quickly found a singing Grasshopper Sparrow and had great looks at a skylarking Cassin's Sparrow. Then we spotted a distant shorebird doing a flight display. Some quick repositioning allowed us to re-find our bird, an Upland Sandpiper. This species is a rare breeder on the Pawnee, and it was the first I had seen in my four tours there.
We still hadn't made it to our picnic breakfast spot, but there was a roadside field that I wanted to check at least briefly, and I'm glad we did. A quick scan turned up a Mountain Plover, and then two more! We piled out of the van and all enjoyed excellent scope views of this very special bird. We'd had a wonderful day already and it wasn't even 7:00 yet. Though we joked about going back to the hotel and getting some more sleep, there was still much to be seen. As we toured the grasslands, great birds just kept popping up, literally. McCown's Longspurs flung themselves into the air to belt out their songs, and then parachute back to earth on uplifted wings. Lark Buntings, although scarce this year, enlivened the roadsides with their flight displays and songs. A Burrowing Owl captured a thirteen-lined ground squirrel right next to us, and then was chased by another before it could settle down to eat in full view of our van. A gorgeous male Chestnut-collared Longspur gave us splendid views as it gathered food right next to the road. We enjoyed a wonderful raptor show with Swainson's Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, six (!) Ferruginous Hawks (including a pair at a nest), and, to top it off, a Golden Eagle perched on a pole right next to our van! Pronghorn, black-tailed prairie dogs, and black-tailed jackrabbits certainly added to the flavor of our day on the prairie.
The other two species that are always high on participants' wish lists are White-tailed Ptarmigan and Brown-capped Rosy-Finch. Both of these species are restricted to high altitudes in the breeding season, and our only chance to see them is at the top of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. So I was a bit dismayed when we arrived at the park and found that the road was closed due to snow and ice. While waiting for conditions to change, we entertained ourselves with some terrific birding at lower elevations. We racked up quite a list including Prairie Falcon; Band-tailed Pigeon; Red-naped and Williamson's sapsuckers; Olive-sided, Hammond's, Dusky, and Cordilleran flycatchers; Gray and Steller's jays, Clark's Nutcracker; Pygmy Nuthatch; American Dipper; Townsend's Solitaire; MacGillivray's Warbler; Green-tailed Towhee; Pine Grosbeak; Cassin's Finch; and Red Crossbill. But even having seen all of those great birds, it would have been disappointing to miss the two big ones. Lucky for us, the weather finally broke and we were able to make it to the top of the mountain. I wasn't sure how the unusually large remaining snow pack was going to affect our target species, but I soon found out. We had barely begun our search when we found not one, but a whole flock of Brown-capped Rosy-Finches. In most years we find only a single bird or a pair, but this was certainly a different year. We had some wonderful close views, as they fed on the edges of the melting snow fields. Several times the whole flock lifted up and flew over us, showing their rosy bellies and translucent pale flight feathers.
So we were down to just one, and we knew they were there! During our search of the tundra we found ptarmigan tracks, ptarmigan feathers, even ptarmigan droppings! But, we couldn't find a pstinkin' ptarmigan! Eventually the cold, the wind, and the advancing hour chased us off the mountaintop, but we were not done yet. That night over a hot dinner we decided that we would give it one last try on our final morning before heading back down to Denver. As we climbed the mountain one more time, we could feel the wind buffeting the van, and we started to wonder if this was really going to be worth it. Usually we are able to avoid the wind by getting up there early, but not on this day. The prospect of a bone-chilling walk was weighing heavy on our minds as we pulled into the parking area, but we soon forgot all about the temperature when, before some of us were even out of the van, Kay exclaimed, "I think I've got one!" She did indeed. Just below the parking area was a pair of White-tailed Ptarmigan. We couldn't believe our luck as we watched them shuffle through the snow, feeding quietly no more than 100 feet from us. As if that weren't enough, all of a sudden the male flew right at us—calling, landed no more than 20 feet away on the retaining wall, and strutted back and forth. It was totally mind-blowing. What a finish! It was the perfect way to end an already fantastic trip.