Click on any image to see a larger version of it.
Snowy Owl east of Barr Lake; a little too far for a decent picture |
Can you spot the bird that's different? (the Blue-morph Snow Goose) |
On another day we drove out to Nunn, CO where, for the first time, we didn't see any Burrowing Owls. We did enjoy seeing a flock of Horned Larks and we also saw our first Eurasian Collared Dove. We then went on to Pawnee National Grassland where we saw very little bird activity, even at the Crow Valley Recreation area. But we did see some Pronghorns and a coyote.
Horned Lark near Nunn, Colorado |
Another wayward bird, the Long-tailed Duck had been spotted at Denver City Park and we got a good look at him this past Sunday. In spite of terrible wind gusts, Mike managed to hang onto our camera and get some nice shots of the duck formerly known as Oldsquaw, and his Duck Lake cohorts. We especially enjoyed seeing several Hooded Mergansers up close.
Long-tailed Duck (M) at right with Common Goldeneye on left |
Hooded Merganser (male) |
Speaking of life lists, we have been reading two birding books this month -- The Big Year and Kenn Kaufman's Kingbird Highway. What fun to compare what we were doing in 1973 with the hitchhiking adventures of a teenage birder!
We have been tracking sightings on the iBird app for iPhone and updating our Bird Brain software to manage our life list as well as start a new list for 2012. As I type, we are at a meager 57 species for the year, but we have high hopes of increasing that number greatly with our upcoming trip to south Texas.