Return to Blogorado: Gunnison

Samantha found this Horned Lark. It's a good thing she did, because it was a TRIP BIRD.

Colorado is home to a few species I've still never seen, the most notable and arguably best of which is Gunnison Sage-Grouse, almost endemic to the state. Dipper Dan, Sultry Sam and myself had a wedding to attend in Denver, but after raging with many old friends, the old tribes of Sunnybrae and San Francisco disbanded and the three of us made the trip out to Gunnison, which if you are unfamiliar is actually a good area to see Gunnison Sage-Grouse. We knew we would require some luck and there was a decent chance we would dip on them...and we did! No need to build up any suspense over our fail, or go into excruciating detail about hours and hours of driving through sagebrush really slowly and constantly stopping to look at grouse-shaped rocks or grouseless patches of habitat...it was shitty. Fortunately, it was a pretty sweet area to explore so it was still a good time - here's a few photos.

We did a whole lot of not seeing grouse in very scenic places. Here is Danmantha not seeing grouse near Tomichi Dome.

Brewer's Sparrow was one of the most abundant birds in the area, though that didn't prevent me from failing to crush, as you can see. This is as good a place as any to confess that we didn't even see Sagebrush Sparrow, which mystifies me considering the habitat we were birding in.

Our Airbnb on the west edge of town was Great Success, as it turned out to be a serious geri birding situation - feeders galore! Here is a Sage Thrasher on a yard bench as geri birding evidence. Other feeder birds included Vesper Sparrow, Green-tailed Towhee, and Cassin's Finch. A side benefit of staying here was finding a male Lark Bunting on the road into town one morning (a flagged rarity in eBird), while on our way to toil in the grouse fields.

One of the Airbnb Vesper Sparrows chants a dawn curse, making grouse completely invisible to us despite our efforts. By this point in the trip, Dan and Sam's marriage had come under incredible strain, partially due to some lingering angst from partner-swapping with other wedding guests back in Denver (hey, it's 2019) and partially because we hadn't seen any grouse. Luckily, they had me to help keep the ship afloat. If anyone needs a marriage counselor or some couples therapy, hit me up, I'm cheap...and a great listener.

Empidonax for the trip were represented by a modest number of Dusky Flycatchers (above) and a Willow Flycatcher at the McCabe Lane Wetlands.

We here at BB&B have a long and storied tradition of taking meh/mediocre (mehdiocre????) photos of Townsend's Solitaires. I admittedly am ready to move on to straight crushing, but the solitaires are not.

The photog opportunities were not many, but I did manage a Mountain Bluebird crush, which I had been hoping for. This crush came at the cost of some fresh facemelt, which will only add to the disfigurement I have previously endured from seeing other Mountain Bluebirds.

Another view of the big sage basin near Tomichi Dome. There must be many grouse here. So close, yet so far...

I did not expect the wildflower scene to be so good...really should have brought my macro lens, but here are a few token shots. Here is some kind of penstemony/beardtonguey thing.

This white phlox was everywhere. Mellowing.

There were some great patches of larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum) around. These were a bit too stunning to be mellowing.

This part of the continent is laden with mammals. Well, almost every part is, but it seems like you see a lot more of them in places like Colorado and Wyoming. We got elked on the reg.

I guess this is a Wyoming ground squirrel? It may have been a lifer squirrel. They were very, very common. They look like several other ground squirrel species I've seen before, so I only now realized they were something else.

If I got the species right, apparently these have had quite the range expansion in recent years and pretty much no one is excited about it...not people, not golden-mantled ground squirrels.

One of the most beloved squirrels in all the land, the one and only quasi chipmunk, the golden-mantled ground squirrel.

Least (?) chipmunks were enthusiastic attendees of the geri birding scene at the Airbnb. Mammals we saw that are not pictured include coyote, pronghorn, mule deer, white-tailed jackrabbit, marmots, and prairie dogs (east of the Rockies).

Needing a little break from driving around the sage in a futile grouse search, we decided to do a short hike and not see grouse while walking. This is the view looking north into the Gunnison Basin/the town of Gunnison from Hartman Rocks. Hecka scenic here...saw some more new plants and some trip birds, including Ash-throated Flycatcher, another eBird rarity.

Well, we failed, but the fail was more fun than not. Since I need to see the grouse someday, there is a good chance this wasn't my last visit to Gunnison.

Pawnee National Grasslands Part II

After we left the great but very bland-looking flock of longspurs, we finally came up on where the real Rhynchophanes action was. Hands shaking and drool forming at the corners of my mouth (not Billy's), we pulled up to several male McCown's Longspurs and all their black-bibbed glory. The females and juveniles were immensely pleasing, but these are the birds I was really hoping to see...I have no explanation for this, but I still remember the grainy image of one from an old Audubon field guide my parents had when I was a kid. This was a bird, for some reason, that I really needed to see...not just this species, this plumage. Why the mind holds on to things like this, I don't know, but as a badly-addicted bird junkie, I have always appreciated birds that melt the face and birds that have no such power, but can be equally as fascinating.

Male McCown's casually paraded around on the ground next to the car while others performed their flight displays in the distance. Everything was coming together...it was all finally happening, as they say down in Austin.

I'm trying to find the right word to describe a male McCown's...it's not a crippling bird by any means, nor should it be relegated to LBJ status (*shivers*...can we banish that phrase forever please?). It belongs in that warm, very comfortable realm between having a subtle beauty (this bird is not subtle though) and possessing what la gente consider true, undeniable beauty. I think I will dub this bird, now having seen them well, as impactful. When I next return to the prairie, longspurs will very much be on the brain.

Though it is tempting to linger in a MCLO daze, I can't avoid posting a Horned Lark photo, sorry. There are hella at PNG, which should surprise absolutely no one. I suppose a Horned Lark can leave an impression as well, and I won't deny them that, but the impression tends to fade after seeing thousands and thousands of them. Still a mellow bird though, and the lark is a known friend of the longspur and the Snow Bunting, which I have always been grateful for.

Longspurs are famous for their ability to frustrate observers, but this juvenile Chestnut-collared (year bird!) had yet to learn how to skulk and give fleeting, frustrating views. It did take me by surprise though...as I said before, very few birders are well-versed with juvenile longspurs and I was utterly unprepared to separate juvenile Chestnut-collared from juvenile McCown's. Luckily I had my wits about me enough to realize this longspur was not like the others I had been seeing.

This bird has a smallish bill and more of a face pattern than the McCown's (a very blank-faced bird, even as juveniles), and lacked any sort of scaliness in the upperparts. Much like a fine whiskey is best appreciated by the ardent and experienced drinker, juvenile longspurs are best enjoyed by the veteran (and thus, deranged) birder. Had I seen this creature as a beginning birder, I would have been struck down with fear and confusion...longspurs are not for the faint of heart.

I've got to post another male Lark Bunting, I have no choice in the matter. This is a bird for all.

After finishing up the usual tour route, it was time to fall back on listservs and eBird...we had not yet seen Mountain Plovers, and that was completely unacceptable. A spot seemingly in the middle of nowhere had many plover reports in the preceding weeks, so we barged our rental car down some questionable dirt roads and made it to the spot...a giant, sprawling prairie dog town, the biggest I had ever seen. This "town" had it all...Lark Buntings, longspurs, a Burrowing Owl, a Ferruginous Hawk loafing on the ground, and a great many frolicking prairie dogs.

Finding the Pastoral Plovers was easy, though this bird tried to make it difficult by crouching behind the spoils of some prairie dog burrows.

As with McCown's Longspurs, Prairie Plovers are shortgrass prairie specialists, and have a very similar breeding range. Many of them spend their summers in the company of prairie dogs, but the majority of the population drifts over to California during the winter months. Since Agrarian Plover is considered a California "specialty", it was especially novel to connect with them far away, at such a great refuge for grassland wildlife.

After leaving the magnificent prairie dog town behind, we headed west to bird a stretch of County Road 45, which is northwest of the standard auto loop and best accessed from Highway 85...after all, as The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive says, "Middle of afternoon is best for see the most good bird".  This is another birdy section of PNG, and we finally managed track down some adult male Chestnut-collared Longspurs, which is arguably the most astonishing-looking prairie bird of them all. Great success...very nice!

On the last day of the Colorado trip we checked out some of the natural areas in Fort Collins, and bagged a couple year birds (Baird's Sandpipers and Franklin's Gulls) on the way out. All in all, I hella enjoyed seeing/birding that part of the country for the first time and look forward to visiting again for some of the lekking superstars the state is known for. Not a bad way to kill a week in July.

Pawnee National Grasslands Part I

Colorado. That's what I had been blogging about before my computer died. Now that I have a new one, blogging can resume! Of course it's September now, so there is a great deal to catch up on, but BB&B does not quit. Especially now that there are so few of us left, and very few of us remain to carry the blogging torch, we must persevere...

Which is not important for our purposes...not today at least. So back in July, after a great victory with the White-tailed Ptarmigan, we quit the Rockies for flatter ground. I had heard about the expansive prairies of Pawnee National Grassland for my entire birding life, and I finally got to bird it. After assisting a jackrabbit with its suicide (second lagomorph species I killed on this trip, the first without using a rock) with the wheel of our rental car, we were out on the auto tour route of the grasslands. Billy immediately found this Solitary Sandpiper, one of the few shorebirds we saw on the whole trip.

The first prairie dog town we came up on had a number of Burrowing Owls, which were pleasantly common on this day. Here are a couple of juveniles checking us out from the safety of a burrow entrance. I've heard much about how Burrowing Owls love prairie dog towns, so it was pretty cool to finally see this relationship in action.

Slowly we began to see more and more birds along the road. In many parts of the Grasshopper Sparrow's range, it requires much effort to actually see them. That is not true at Pawnee, where they were also pleasantly common. Here is a streaky (by Grasshopper Sparrow standards) juvenile.

Another juvenile, though it looks a bit older than the above bird.

The abundance of Grasshopper Sparrows was definitely due, in part, to the crop of juvenile birds littering the roadsides. Here is an adult bird, with bright yellow lores.

It did not take long for Lark Buntings to start popping up. Lark Bunting is Colorado's state bird, and a very good one at that. Adult females like this one can be very striking, though they lack the crippling effect adult males can often have on an observer.

Juvenile Lark Bunting, a life plumage. Pink legs...I didn't know that color belonged on a Lark Bunting...but even the #7 U.S. birder may be surprised. The birder who is no longer surprised is not an experienced birder, no...it is a dead birder.

Though it was late July and juvenile birds were out in force, we did see plenty of males owning the Economy of Style. A couple were even doing display flights, which I had only seen once before. Prairie birding is so fucking good...

This Common Nighthawk chose a photogenic roosting site. Thank you, nighthawk.

All these other birds were great, but I was frothing at the mouth to see some longspurs. Longspurs, lonspurs, longspurs...as a Californian, we get a taste of them, but all too often it is just a tease. Laplands are always a good bird, albeit expected in certain areas, but Chestnut-collareds are extremely erratic, McCown's is a great bird, and Smith's is a MEGUH. Even if we do get to see 'spurs here, all too often we are forced to settle with absolute bullshit looks. I hadn't seen a McCown's in years, and never outside of California, so this was pretty much my main target bird of the day, even though they are relatively common at Pawnee. Eventually we found an area thick with them, and had a flock on the road next to the car, with a couple females (above) and a bunch of juveniles.

Juvenile longspurs are not a strong suit for most birders. The first time I saw a juvenile Lapland (in the western Aleutians), it caused complete and total brainfreeze. If someone would have asked me what it was right after I got on the bird, I probably would have responded with "Durrrrrrrr". A couple of these juveniles brought that Durrrrrr feeling back, but this is indeed a juvenile McCown's, another life plumage.

Seeing a flock of these charismatic (and probably rapidly declining) birds flopping around in the road in front of me was like plunging a syringe full of heroin into my arm for the first time really cool. The birding gods smiled upon me. But the day was not over yet...more to come in the next post.

Rocky Mountain National Park: Medicine Bow Curve, Endovalley, The Rabbit and The Rock

Our second morning in Colorado, we awoke early...destiny does not come for the late riser. This would be a fateful day, one way or another. By the end of the day I might be a birding hero, or it could all come crashing down on me. If failure was in the cards, this would be a memorable dip indeed. Following in the footsteps of probably thousands of birders before me, we would aim for arriving at Medicine Bow Curve as early as possible for the best chance of bagging a White-tailed Ptarmigan, the undisputed target bird of the trip. White-tailed Ptarmigan was one of those birds I saw in a field guide as a kid that seemed especially fascinating...though it was a bird found in the Lower 48, who knew when I would actually get to look for one? Never? Over 20 years later, I finally had my chance.

We got out of our Airbnb at Horsetooth Reservoir acceptably early, passed some Swainson's Hawks at their night roost, avoided a predawn collision with a herd of bighorn sheep crossing the road and quickly got up to Medicine Bow Curve. The park was beautiful early in the morning, and practically devoid of human life. We were the first people to arrive at the curve, the weather was sunny and calm, so I thought our chances of crossing paths with this bird was very good.

As the morning dragged on, my opinion of our chances started to fade. Back and forth I trodded along the short trail, scanning the rocky ground for a rock that would move. This went on for some time. Finally, I knew it was time to admit defeat...Billy and I were almost back to the car when I made my ceremonial last scan (As the GBRS ranked #7 birder in the U.S., I highly recommend taking a thorough last scan for interesting birds whenever you are about to leave a site. I can't tell you how many times this has resulted in lifers and rarities, whereas I would have had nothing to show for it otherwise). Wayyyyy upslope above me, I noted a rock with a protrustion that resembled a head and neck of a ptarmigan. This was not exciting, and not even really interesting...I knew, in my heart of hearts, that it was just a rock that happened to resemble a ptarmigan. What it certainly was not was an actual ptarmigan.

Then, I thought I saw the head of the rock move. Could it be? Finally, the entire rock started strolling away, with 5 golfball-sized rocks following it.

Suddenly, the air was filled with imaginary fireworks. Ticker tape rained down on us, and squadrons of F-18s flew low overhead in a show of birding patriotism. The shimmering ghost of Roger Tory Peterson stood with the spirits of Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, proudly regarding the winning birders. We had done it!

The ptarmigan and her escort of tiny chicks seemed to have a particular destination in mind, which looked like it happened to be right next to the end of the trail, so we scurried back down the trail toward where I thought the birds were heading. Sure enough she reappeared above, with a vanguard of ridiculous ptarmiganlets leading the way.

While ptarmigans are reported with comforting regularity from this location, they are not by any means a sure thing. Among birds in the Lower 48, perhaps no other species has camouflage equal to that of the White-tailed Ptarmigan, made possible from the drastic molts they undergo each spring and fall, transforming from a peerless sheer white even Snowy Owls are envious of to an indescribably intricate pattern of gold, tan and black. This is a product of living in an environment of extremes, of course, the sort of place that for many years involved a major undertaking for humans to get to. There is a reason that so many cultures believe that The Creator dwells on the highest mountain top. And who does The Creator keep for company for much of the year, when all other creatures go to sleep or flee for warmer climes? The pika, and the ptarmigan.

Unlike the chicks, the hen was wearing  a lot of accessories...leg bands, a radio collar, and a big antenna that sprouted from her back. The ptarmigans here are part of a long-term study to detect changes in population density and monitor reproductive success; this species is vulnerable to climate change and may also be impacted by elk browse on alpine willows.

The fam fam (pfam pfam) strolled right by us, just as I had hoped. Though extremely hard to spot (as advertised), they also were very confiding (as advertised). I couldn't believe that it had all come together like this...was it all luck? Was Frank Mayer down in the valley below, emanating beams of his notoriously excellent luck?

A baby ptarmigan is not something I thought I would ever see. I get all choked up just thinking about it. Look at those stout little legs.

After our time in the company of the ptarmigan was over, it was back down Trail Ridge Road. The Mountain Bluebird nest at the visitor's center restroom was about to explode with fledglings.

The Brown-capped Rosy-Finches again abided at Lava Cliffs. A stop at Rainbow Curve for Pine Grosbeak (which a birder had just seen there earlier that morning) and Gray Jay was met with failure, but in the light of the come-from-behind win with the ptarmigan family, that didn't matter very much. Finally we decided to visit Endovalley, which is popular with birders and surely held some more yankee bravos. It really is a pleasant place to bird and hang out; we happened to park next to a calling Hammond's Flycatcher, which would be the only one of the trip. We walked along the gurgling stream, which Billy enjoyed like a normal person but which simply frustrated me because I kept seeing dipper shit on the rocks but with no accompanying dipper. Finally we came up on an area with no dipper shit, but an actual dipper.

Eastern birders absolutely fiend for dippers, and rightly so. There is nothing like a dipper in the east...waterthrushes are cool, but they are no dipper. Western birders are very grateful for their ouzels, we do not take them lightly. We hung out a long time with this confiding juvenile, who serenaded us with some whisper singing that served as the perfect accompaniment to the babbling brook.

The dipper seemed content to do absolutely nothing for quite a while, which I can really respect. Eventually it took interest in a nub on the log, which I also respect. It's all about the little things in life you know?

This ended up being the mellowest dipper I had ever met, probably even the best dipper I had ever seen. For those of you who have not met one of these stream spirits, don't worry...your dipper is out there, waiting for you. Just don't look for one in a dried up stream, or you will find your spirit equally dried up.

After loitering with the dipper, we walked back out along the road to bird the aspen groves. It did not take long before another yankee bravo reared its sappy head...several Red-naped Sapsuckers lurked within the aspens. Though I'd seen many in California over the years, I'd never actually seen one where they breed. Aspens are an ideal place for sapsuckery.

This male is showing the classic red throat washing over the black border of the throat, and of course the reddish nape. Sharp bird.

After we finished up at RMNP, we had a "day off" in the lowlands, hanging out around Fort Collins and visiting a few spots around town. The two Airbnbs we got for this trip had really worked out well, especially the one by Horsetooth Reservoir, where one could do some decent yard birding. In fact, one of the most bizarre experiences of the trip happened there while we were talking to the owners about birds...their cat wandered outside, and came back to us a few minutes later with a live baby cottontail in its mouth, which was squealing in agony. The cat, of course, simply dropped the rabbit (which was bleeding from its neck) and walked away. For the next several minutes, the rabbit would appear to finally be dead, then kick pathetically in the air, then repeat. It was quite awkward, because the owners certainly didn't know what to do about it. Finally Billy decided enough was enough, and volunteered me to put it out of its misery...great. So I held it against a large rock, got another rock, and beat its brain in until there was nothing left of its head anymore (don't worry, I dispatched it on the first blow, I'm good at stuff). It was extremely messy. So in case you needed to be told for the millionth time...keep your shitty cats indoors people!

Since this was late July, I was fiending to find some migrant shorebirds...surprisingly, there are seemingly countless ponds and lakes in the area, but they pretty much all had too much water to support any shorebirds at all. Fossil Creek Reservoir had a couple hella distant sandpipers but these Lark Sparrows (adult and fledgling) in the parking lot were more fun to hang out with.

I don't remember my lifer Mountain Bluebird, American Dipper or Red-naped Sapsucker (was it at Galileo Hill?), but I do remember seeing Lark Sparrows for the very first time. This bird really left a mark on me...never underestimate the power of the Lark Sparrow, or suffer your father's fate you will. Whatever that is.

Both Eastern (above) and Western Kingbirds are very common in the area and happily (or bitterly?) use the same habitats, which is odd since they behave so similarly and are both famously hyperaggressive species...I guess there must be enough food to go around.

The next day we would make the drive out to the legendary Pawnee National Grasslands, where lunch would be served with a large side of longspurs. See you at the next post.