Today I birded with friends in Morgan and Logan Counties.

At Riverside Park in Morgan County Cackling Geese outnumbered Canada Geese roughly four to one.

Canada Goose amidst Cackling Geese

Here’s a Dark-eyed Junco we spotted on the side of a county road:

Dark-eyed Junco

We saw hundreds of Snow Geese at North Sterling Reservoir, though they were far away:

Snow Geese and allies at North Sterling Reservoir

Another bird along the side of a county road:

White-crowned Sparrow (Gambel’s)

And three views of another:

Rough-legged Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

Rough-legged Hawk

Another bird along a county road:

Golden Eagle

And another:

Northern Harrier

Jumbo Reservoir was jaw-dropping in terms of the numbers of Snow Geese:

Snow Geese and allies

Whenever a Bald Eagle appeared in the sky, the birds scattered:

Snow Geese

Close-ups:

Snow Goose (adult)

Snow Goose (immature)

Last, here’s an interesting Mallard, bearing field marks of both female (black-and-orange bill, smaller size compared to Mallard drakes) and male (green on the head, curly tail feathers, general patterning of Mallard drakes).

Mallards

Today I joined a Denver Field Ornithologists trip, led by David Suddjian, that focused on waterfowl in the greater southwest Denver area.

However, a young Northern Harrier stole the limelight early on:

Northern Harrier

At Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield Farms we got good views of a male Mexican Duck:

Mexican Duck

Mexican Duck and Mallard (both male)

On the morning walk in the Bear Creek Greenbelt my better half and I saw a flock of Bushtits.  It’s very difficult to get a shot of one staying still out in the open!

Bushtit

Later in the morning I birded with a friend of mine at Main Reservoir.  We didn’t see the rarities du jour there, such as a Barrow’s Goldeneye and a Northern Parula, but we did see a Yellow-rumped Warbler and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet . . . in addition to plentiful waterfowl (Canada Geese, American Wigeons, Gadwalls, Hooded Mergansers, Mallards, Ring-necked Ducks, and American Coots) and the usual suspects (Black-capped Chickadees, Song Sparrows, and Dark-eyed Juncos).

Afterwards we stopped at another pond, just a bit smaller.  My friend, a keen observer, pointed out this Cackling Goose with eyebrows:

Cackling Goose

There were a dozen or more Redheads, who, like the American Coots, had to watch out for the circling American Wigeons who were seeking to steal a meal.

Here’s a Ring-necked Duck:

Ring-necked Duck

At the smaller pond we did not see the Greater White-fronted Goose that has been there recently.

Sometimes you get the crawdaddy:

Hooded Merganser (female) with crawfish

Sometimes the crawdaddy gets you:

Crawfish with Hooded Merganser (female)

This morning my better half and I walked over to the horseshoe pond next to the Stone House in the Bear Creek Greenbelt.  We saw dozens of Canada Geese, several Mallards, several Hooded Mergansers, and almost twenty Northern Shovelers (all tucked up asleep on the water), but the thing that made our jaws drop was a squirrel that swam across the pond.  How is it that neither of us–given all our years in Florida with numerous lakes, ponds, and creeks, not to mention squirrels–had ever seen a squirrel swim?

Northern Shoveler

Hooded Mergansers

In the afternoon I checked out the tiny pond west of Estes.

Ring-necked Ducks

Redhead

On an early lunch walk in the Bear Creek Greenbelt I heard Bushtits several minutes before I spotted the flock, which was moving west in the trees along the paved trail.  The birds were trilling very softly.  Once I finally put eyes on a few individuals, they made an alarm call, much louder than the trills, a sound the Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Western North America calls a dzit series.  It lasted just a couple of seconds.  Then the entire flock flew out of the trees at once–instead of moving singly from tree to tree, following each other, as they do when they are foraging–and alighted quickly in trees just to the west.

The day was cool and overcast, and no good would result from my photographing tiny gray birds in gray trees against a gray sky.

So I photographed something else gray, a diminutive fox squirrel I’ve seen several times in that part of the greenbelt.  Like its brethern, it is fairly wary of humans, but it is markedly smaller.

Fox squirrel

Tonight we had our first snowfall of the season, with less than half an inch accumulating.   This year Denver has broken its record for the latest measurable snowfall.

Today in our back yard a Spotted Towhee was rustling around fallen leaves from the green ash tree.  Meanwhile, a Dark-eyed Junco took up a perch on the back fence:

Dark-eyed Junco

The weather has been so mild that for the third afternoon in a row we rode our mountain bikes to Bear Creek Lake Park.  Today we spotted an eight-point mule deer west of Mt. Carbon.  A little further west we saw a doe.

As it often is these days, a Red-tailed Hawk was perched high in a tree not far from the parking lot where the boat ramp is.  And as we were blasting down a singletrack descent on the east side of the dam I spotted an American Kestrel perched in a tree just before the trail crosses the paved road.  We circled back on the road to get a better look.  In the last couple of weeks we’ve twice seen a Black-billed Magpie harassing a kestrel in that area.  Still, it must have good hunting grounds in that area because we’ve been seeing a kestrel around the dam for the past couple of years.

On an early lunch walk in the Bear Creek Greenbelt I spotted a silent Cooper’s Hawk perched in a tree:

Cooper’s Hawk

Here’s Manky Mallard:

Mallard hybrid

Here’s a disheveled-looking Song Sparrow:

Song Sparrow

We found the American Dipper again in the Bear Creek Greenbelt!

American Dipper

American Dipper

My favorite pair of Mallards (Green Bill and Mottled Bill) wasn’t far away:

Mallards

At the pond that never freezes this female Belted Kingfisher held sway:

Belted Kingfisher

Just east of the pond that never freezes my better half and I had the good fortune of spotting a Townsend’s Solitaire, first of the season for us in the greenbelt.

Townsend’s Solitaire

Later in the morning I went to Cooley Lake to see the migratory raft of Common Mergansers that appears annually there for just a few days.  Access is limited:  I could view the lake, peering through a chain link fence, only from the southern end.  The Common Mergansers, some three hundred of them, were energetically diving at the far northern end.  They were accompanied by Ring-billed Gulls, roughly a third less in number.  One definitely needs a scope to even discern these birds.

On the southern end, where I was stationed, a few American Coots and Hooded Mergansers gathered, yet they were still too far for a decent photograph.  Finally, a Pied-billed Grebe obliged by venturing a little closer.

Pied-billed Grebe

This morning I joined a bird walk at South Platte Park put on by Evergreen Audubon and led by Ed Furlong.  Most of the birds were too far away to be photographed well (it was definitely a spotting scope sort of day), but here are two that drew closer:

Northern Shoveler

American Coot

The highlight of the day was seeing nine Bald Eagles soaring together overhead.  Two pairs were engaging in courtship behavior, including a stunning cartwheel display.  

On my walk in the Bear Creek Greenbelt a dozen Bushtits materialized around me to glean insects from the trees.  A Red-tailed Hawk flew over, and they all sounded the same alarm at once.

Here’s one hanging around:

Bushtit

Here are the two Mallards (Green Bill and Mottled Bill) that forage as American Dippers do:

Mallards

Mallards

At the tiny pond at the intersection of Yale and Estes I saw a male Ring-necked Duck and a female Northern Shoveler.  Here’s the latter:

Northern Shoveler