We had our first sub-freezing morning in over a week. On our walk with the dog in the Bear Creek Greenbelt we saw the usuals, including these singletons: one Double-crested Cormorant, one American Robin, one Belted Kingfisher, one Great Blue Heron, one American Crow. The Red-tailed Hawk is sitting on her nest near Yale, and the male is never far away. There are still a few Gadwalls in the pond that never freezes. A pair of Hooded Mergansers were swimming just east of the footbridge. Several Song Sparrows were singing loudly, and a couple more were foraging at the edge of Bear Creek. We saw two Dark-eyed Juncos, the Gray-headed subspecies, which, according to Ted Floyd’s Field Guide to Birds of Colorado, is the only subspecies (of the six that occur here in winter) that breeds here in summer.
Red-winged Blackbirds are both ubiquitous and loud.
After lunch we rode our mountain bikes to Bear Creek Lake Park. The areas that burned are now green with grass. On the way back home, my better half spotted a pair of Blue-winged Teals in the beaver pond by the footbridge. When we took the dog for a walk later this afternoon, we found the teals again: