BIRDS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
THE BIRDS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF MORRIS CLARK
(Members of FMWAS will remember long-time board member, Morris Clark. After retiring he and his wife, Katie moved to just outside Livermore, Colorado. When I asked why he wanted to leave warm Florida for the cold winters of the Rocky Mountains, he told me that he had lived all his life in Florida and just wanted to become acquainted with some different birds in a different habitat.
Morris has traveled all over the world looking at birds but his joy is to observe the behaviors of our feathered friends as they live their daily lives. When I asked him to write about the birds in his new yard, he was glad to share his experiences with us.).
Please tell everyone at FMWAS hello and I miss seeing and birding with everyone. .
First, I have attached a Mt-Peale-Wildlife highlighted spreedsheet click here to open of wildlife sightings from our property by month. These sighting were made during the past eighteen months that we have been living here full-time and the six visits, totaling fourteen weeks over three years, we made before our final move.
The birds shown in bold type are western birds that we have really enjoyed getting to know well. We have seen them often enough to learn their sounds, behaviors, reactions to threats, etc.
I had seen all these birds, except the Bohemian Waxwings, over the years but most sightings were fairly quick each time which didn’t allow me to get to know the birds.
We seem to live in the migration path of some Sandhill Cranes. On October 17, 2014, I was outside and, of course heard first, then saw approximately 30 Sandhill Cranes flying in a V-formation approximately 2,000 feet above our home, which is at an elevation of 7,800 feet. They were travelling due south.
Then, a year later on October 16, 2015, I heard and saw two flocks, 30 and 150 birds, fly over about an hour apart. This year, I looked and listened for them with no success.
I was in town all day on the 15th and we had high winds out of the southwest on the 16th and 17th. The 18th was a good weather day, but no cranes.
I believe that the cranes we saw were most likely Greater Sandhill Cranes and were on their way to Alamosa and Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuges located in southern Colorado for a refueling stop-over before going on to the Bosque Del Apache NWR for the winter.
One of the western birds that we are delighted to have around throughout the year is the Townsend’s Solitaire. This member of the thrush family has an elaborate song similar to other thrushes.
And, to my knowledge, it is the only bird around here that sings in the fall and winter to establish and defend a high-quality feeding territory, consisting mostly of juniper trees with berries.
The song is described in one of my references as “one of the most glorious and beautiful of bird songs with an infinitely fine and sweet rendering of mountain music in rippling cadences”.
Of course, they also sing in the spring and summer usually from the very top of a tall Douglas Fir. I never knew that this fairly plain grey colored bird would be such a delightful neighbor.
They don’t come to bird feeders but they regularly come and drink water from the several water containers that we provide for the wildlife.
Another birding experience might be of interest to Audubon members. In early September of last year a juvenile Lewis’s Woodpecker showed up in the Ponderosa Pine trees where we have a couple of bird feeders hanging behind our kitchen and near our patio. I believe that it was attracted to the bird activity in the area.
It hung around five days and never showed interest in eating sunflower seed or peanuts in the feeders. Insects were probably still plentiful enough, since they mostly eat insects when available by fly-catching and gleaning trunks and branches of trees.
We always scatter some seed on the rocks and ground for the ground feeding birds such as Juncos, Green-tailed Towhees, sparrows, Black-billed Magpies, Steller’s Jays, and Mourning Doves.
The chipmunks and squirrels are always very excited about getting what they think is their share of this seed.
Well, we usually have around a few Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels, except during the winter when they are hibernating.
They seem to get pleasure out of running at high speed through a feeding group of small birds and flushing them. They will even run at a loose group of Steller’s Jays and flush them.
I have seen them on two occasions run at an Abert’s Squirrel, which is much larger, and the Abert’s grabs them by the back of the neck and shakes them before turning them loose. And, even this doesn’t change their behavior.
Well, with that background information let’s get back to the Lewis’s Woodpecker. On the fourth day it was here, it was sitting on a stump located about thirty feet from our kitchen window and I thought maybe I could get a clear photograph of it.
So, as I was preparing to take the photo a Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel ran up the stump to flush the bird on top. The attached photo shows what happened.
So, when the squirrel reached the top, the young Lewis’s Woodpecker lunged back at the squirrel with its sharp bill and wings out in an aggressive manor and the squirrel did a backwards flip off the stump.
And, I was able to capture the moment in a fairly decent photograph. The next photo, which was taken moments later, is the proud winner of this contest. I was so impressed with the young Lewis’s Woodpecker.
By Morris Clark
Photos by Morris Clark