Life Bird chase to St. Louis, MO

Well . . . it was about that time to go ticking after yet another new life bird to add to my ABA life list. Colorado(+12) was almost two months ago, and now that I'm rested up, it's time for another road trip. It has been common knowledge that the Eurasian Tree Sparrow(code2) only resides in the St. Louis area. Now I just needed to find a reason to go there. Luckly, my mother and step-father where headed to Bonne Terre, MO to do a scuba diving adventure, and invited me to come along. Through the arch we go!!

Welcome to St. Louis

On Saturday morning, June 21st, I had 2 members of BirdTeam6 pick me up for the hunt. They have a friend who lives in the suburb Crestwood, and he has several nesting pairs of the birds this time of year. So it was a very easy bird to see this time of year.

Life bird #552

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

hungry?

 

 

In North America, a population of about 15,000 birds has become established around St. Louis and neighboring parts of Illinois and southeastern Iowa. These sparrows are descended from 12 birds imported from Germany and released in late April 1870 as part of a project to enhance the native North American avifauna. Within its limited US range, the Eurasian tree sparrow has to compete with the house sparrow in urban centers, and is therefore mainly found in parks, farms and rural woods. The American population is sometimes referred to as the "German sparrow", to distinguish it from both the native American tree sparrow species and the much more widespread "English" house sparrow,

Eurasian Tree Sparrow in natural setting

                                              Thanks so much to Don&Cheryl for picking me up and helping me get this life bird. This makes the 5th life bird I've gotten with them. Usually we are together down in the Rio Grand Valley of South Texas in March enjoying the sunny warm weather, birding and Mexico!! They have hosted Red&Louise Gambill in early falls on their way to Texas for the winter. They have shown them Eurasian Tree Sparrow, usually in flocks out in the fields getting ready for winter.

BirdTeam6

Art? "Redwood"

Big wood

           

Rampage video game, I'm the Lizard

 We stopped by Laumeier Sculpture Park for some birding and crazy pictures of what we call Art. The redwood sculpture is over 30 feet, all made from one tree log. We drove west on I-44 toward Tulsa, and stopped at another park, that had a auto tour, so we could bird by car, it sure gets hot and humid here in the midwest.  We saw/heard Louisiana WaterThrush, Kentucky warbler, Acadian Flycatcher, Yellow Throated warbler, Common Yellowthroat, and this nice

Red-Headed Woodpecker

This sparrow puts me at #552 for ABA life list, and #293 for BigYear2014. So with that, birding was done, mission accomplished. Now onto the mine dive.

Bonne Terre, MO is about 60 miles south off I-55 towards Memphis, then SR67 southwest. Turns out this little town has  “The Worlds Largest Man Made Caverns”. BONNE TERRE MINES was one of the earliest lead mines in Missouri, and was the worlds largest producer of lead ore. Mining at Bonne Terre began in 1860, and continued until 1962. The mine covers an underground area larger than the town of Bonne Terre, and consists of five levels. The lower three levels are flooded, to form a seventeen mile long illuminated Underground “Billion Gallon Lake” which was filmed and dived by Jacques Cousteau, and is home of the worlds largest inland SCUBA diving resort. The two upper levels of the Mine are lighted and used for one hour guided Walking Tours along the old Mule Trails, and Boat Tours.

Starting platform

Boat ride

Divers coming up, safety spotter on kayak 

Mine Shaft, levels 4&5 are flooded

Ghost stories??

Next up: ????

Late spring Ohio birding

Well, this is it. It's almost officially summer, the temperature is up, and the birding slows down. By now, you usually make your list of year birds seen so far, and then you start to tackle the individual birds that you've missed for the year. Summer is usually slow, so when you do go out, it's to see specific birds in locations that you know you can see them.  Sometimes though . . . a rarity or lifer may show up.  Keep you eyes and ears peeled.

 So off to the summer chase. One the best locations to bird in central Ohio, is on the far west side, off Broad St./SR40 outside the outer belt. It's call Battelle Darby Metro Park. Really, it comes down to the Teal Trail/Harrier Loop and South Kuhlwein Rd wetlands area. There are lots of birds to see there, including many species of sparrows like Grasshopper, Vesper, Savannah, Henslow, Song, Chipping, Field, and Nelson's. It's a great place to bird. I stopped by on June 8th for the reported nesting pair of Blue Grosbeaks.  When looking for them, you just have to listen for the grosbeak call, and sure enough, right off the Kuhlwein Rd. parking lot, walking south on the bike path . . .

Male Blue Grosbeak

better pic, singing away

A large, vibrantly blue bunting with an enormous silver bill and chestnut wingbars, the male Blue Grosbeak sings a rich, warbling song from trees and roadside wires. He and his cinnamon-colored mate often raise two broods of nestlings in a single breeding season. A bird of shrubby habitats, these richly colored birds can be hard to spot unless you hear them singing first. They are widespread but not abundant across the southern U.S., and are expanding their range.

After that, I looked for the reported Bells' Vireo in the Teal Trail parking lot, but no bird was there. So, I went up to Heritage Park Trial in Hilliard, where the Bells' Vireo have nested the last 2 years, but no luck yet, but I'm sure later this summer I'll hear them singing there. But I did get a Willow Flycatcher 

Willow Empid. singing "fitz-bew"

A small drab flycatcher of wet, brushy areas, the Willow Flycatcher is best identified by its voice. Nearly identical to the Alder Flycatcher; the two species were considered the same until the 1970s.

On Sunday June 15th, I spent the morning chasing warblers and tanagers that I have missed so far this year.  Off the http://birding.aba.org/maillist/OH, there where reports from early June of many nesting warblers at Black Hand Gorge State Park in eastern Licking County. I have never been there, but the pictures looked amazing. I contacted fellow birder Charlie Bombaci for details and a map of the trails. I arrived at 8am, and parked in the lot for the Marie Hickory Trail. I walked south along the gravel road, pass a the first oil containers, and heard the distinct call of the Prairie Warbler

Singing Prairie Warbler

 A tail-wagging yellow warbler with black streaks down its sides, the Prairie Warbler is found in scrubby fields and forests throughout the eastern and south-central United States, not on the prairies. I saw several last year in Florida, but this was my first Ohio species seen in the last couple of years.

From there I drove over to the main entrance/parking lot of the park, and walked down the paved Blackhand trail. At the marker "D", I walked up the Quarry Rim trail into the woods, about 30 feet, I heard the very distinct call "chuuree, chuuree, churee" of the Kentucky Warbler.

Singing male Kentucky

A bird of the deciduous forests of the southeastern United States, the Kentucky Warbler's loud song can be heard far more frequently than the brightly-colored bird can be seen. It stays near the ground and the lower levels of the forest, and nests on the ground. Sure enough, it took me over 30 minutes of chasing this bird around, you could hear it, but seeing it is very very tough. I got lucky and it finally landed in a good spot, enough for me to get this photo.
 So BAMM, I've added three more new year species for the year, bring my BIGYEAR total to #292, with 4 states visited. Not bad so far, my goal is to best 2013's mark of #338. Hopefully with more Ohio summer birding, a Washington trip in October, and maybe an August trip somewhere, I should be able to get 47 more birds.  Enjoy the summer, and keep birding

Next up:  Life Bird chase to St. Louis, MO for a sparrow??

The Centennial State

What are you doing this weekend? Want to go to Colorado? Why yes!!  Great, let's catch the 6am flight Friday out of CVG to DEN via Frontier airlines. http://www.flyfrontier.com/. We've landed at 7:15am MST. Now it's time to get the rental, which one do we take??

Kia Sorento

We have plans to stay the night in Gunnision, CO some 224 miles away, but over 4 hours of drivetime. We're going to heading through some high mountain passes on this day. Our first stop was southwest Denver, the town of Morrison to get the American Dipper. Tick! Then up 2 miles to the beautiful Red Rocks Parks&Amphitheater. What a place to visit or see a concert. They where even filming a commerical there.

Pearl Jam anyone?

JK&Sam with Ship Rock in back

CrossFit

In Morrison, before the dipper, we got this great owlette. No parent owls around. In the parking lot, we got this Western-Scrub Jay. I saw a couple last year in California. Very pretty. Plus, I just got the Florida-Scrub Jay in March in Florida(see earlier post). The scrub jay was split in 1996 into 3 sub-species. I still only need the Island-Shrub Jay for a lifer.

Juvenile Great Horned Owl

Western-Scrub Jay

Plenty of Western Kingbirds around in Colorado.Very common.

Western-Kingbird

14 footer

The drive down SR285 is fantastic. Highly recommend it for anyone visiting the state. The state has 53 mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation. Sawatch Range has many of the highest mountains.
We stopped at Monarchs Pass, 12,000 feet. Yea, it snowed there last week.

On Saturday afternoon, we drove back up SR285, then split off to SR9 north through downtown Breckenridge. Beautiful ski town. Can't image what this place would look like during ski season. We took that up to The Grand Army of the Rebuplic Highway, Route 6. We stopped at Loveland Pass to get the WTPT and these great pics. Wish we could of spent more time there.

Life Bird #546 in this pic

#TSB

Saturday night, we went to bed early in Brighton, CO after a celebratory life bird Sonic milkshake.  We traveled up to Pawnees Grasslands on Sunday morning, and then headed back to Denver for lunch, and Cherry Creek Reservoir for the Rock Wren. By now is was 4pm and ready for check-in at DEN for our 7pm flight back to CVG. In the end, this turned out to be one the greatest trips ever for me and the guys. Thanks again. Please comment our where our #birdteam2015 should go next year. Ideas!?!

Trip Stats:
60 hours in Colorado
778 miles driven in a KIA
24 MPG
112 total species
49 FOYs--Notables
(CinnamonTeal,Clark&WstrnGrebe,WhitefacedIbis,BroadtailedHumbrd,SaysPhoebe,
JuniperTitmouse,PygmyNuthatch,YBC,Townswarbler,GreentailedTowhee,Brewerspw,Larkspw,Larkbuning,WstrnTanager,BlackheadGrosbeak,BrewrsBlkbird,CassinsFinch)
12 LIFERS, now at ABA#551

Next up: Ohio summer birding

Townsend Warble, male

Black-tailed Prairie Dog

Colorado Jackpot!! 12 Lifers added

  Extreme birding at its finest!!  New state, new elevations, new habitats produces new birds. So how did we end up here? The last 3 years Sam and I have visited the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas in March, and got to do some rare bird chasing with Red & Louise Gambill. In 2013 we invited JK with us, and the birdteam was formed. It's getting harder to chase rarities in LRGV unless you winter there, so I wanted to find a place with more bang for the buck for a birding trip.  Last year I started following Big Year Birder Jay Lehman http://jaysbigyear2013.blogspot.com/ during his run through 733+2 species in a year. I noticed in May 2013, he had a great trip to Colorado, and got several first of year(FOYs) birds for him, that turned out to be many LIFE birds for me. So the location was set.

                                                  

My favorite road in the Centennial State

  This post will be of the 12 new life birds I got, while the next post will be more about the trip, locations, FOYs, and good times. I started the trip with ABA#539 Olive-Sided Flycatcher from 5/13/14 that I got on Tuesday earlier that week. Starting on Friday 5/16 til Sunday 5/18/2014 I saw;

#540 American Dipper--Morrison, CO--Bear Creek
#541 Lazuli Bunting--Red Rocks Trading Post
#542 Bullocks Oriole--Red Rocks Trading Post
#543 Black-Billed Magpie--Red Rocks Trading Post
#544 Mountain BlueBird--Waunita Lek, 20miles East of Gunnison, CO
#545 Gunnison Sage-Grouse--Waunita Lek, 20miles East of Gunnison, CO
#546 White-Tailed Ptarmigan--Loveland Pass on Route 6
#547 Townsend Solitaire--Genesee Park, Golden, CO
#548 Plumbeous Vireo--Crow Valley Campground--Briggsdale, CO
#549 Common Poorwill--Crow Valley Campground--Briggsdale, CO
#550 Cordilleran Flycathcer--Crow Valley Campground--Briggsdale, CO
#551 McCown's Longspur--Pawnee Grasslands

Let the birding begin!! We landed at 7:15am MST on Friday, and before lunch, I got the American Dipper. Ebird.org had posted a report of a nesting pair, under the pedistrian footbridge over the creek. And sure enough . . .

Dippin'

#540

 





 





Next, up to Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre and the Trading Post. Again, Ebird.org had some nice reports from both places, so we stopped by. Plus, the actual red rocks that stick out of the ground are amazing. It is worth a visit and it's free. At the Trading Post, through the gift shop, there is a nice back yard area, with feeders, trees, water feature, and giant red rocks. Many birds fly through, so just sit back with your camera and BOOM!!  . . .

#541

Male(left) Female(right) Lazuli Bunting

#542

Male Bullock's Oriole

Then . . .                                                                       
























We went over to the amphitheater to look down onto the stage, and up at Ship Rock. There had been reports of Prarie Falcon that nests up in the rock. And sure enough, we could hear the calling of the bird, but it never came out for flight. So without being 100% sure, we bounced on ticking that life bird. It will have to wait until next time. Giving me a reason--to travel the county. Down in the lower parking lot of Ship Rock, we spotted a great view a Black-Billed Magpie, one of many seen during the trip.
 

#543

 Now, we where making great time, and had seen a lot of birds. We stared southwest on the famous Route 285 from Red Rocks down to Salida, CO then west on Route 50 to Gunnison for the night. We stopped at the place for the grouse in the morning, just to see what it looked like with daylight, and if we where lucky, a sighting. No grouse that evening, but I did get my last life BlueBird species, the Mountain BlueBird. Unlike other bluebird species, Mountain Bluebirds often hover while foraging; they also pounce on their insect prey from an elevated perch

#544

The next morning, we awoke at 4am MST, for a 20 mile drive to be back at the Waunita Lek for the dawn display of the Gunnison Sage-Grouse(#545). Jay Lehman got the grouse the same time last year on May 15th. We were 2 days later, but intially had no luck. It was a large field with foothills about 2 miles away. We did not see any grouse, just the sounds of Wilson's Snipe tickling calls. A second car arrived later, an Italian birder here in the U.S. for 5 weeks. He had no idea, but wanted to see the birds too. Then, another car with Colorado plates shows up with 2 more birders, great locals, just what we need! After 15 minutes, the CO birder moves up to the front to look at the farther foothill, and he says . . "I've got the birds!!"  Great news for us. I ended up viewing 2 males far away on the foothill through the scope, but could not take any pictures. It's the only one I didn't get a snap at.      

Birding a 5am, it's a regular thing

Yeah!! LifeBird for #TSB

Wow, that was LUUCKY, almost dipped on that one. With that adventure over with, we headed back to Roadway Inn for free Continental breakfast. The owner was very nice, and happy we had seen the bird, many birders come and stay at the Roadway Inn just for this spectacle.  With that we decided to head back up route 285, then north on route 9(see first pic) through Breckenridge, then east onto route 6 to Loveland Pass. Here we are at 12,000 feet, and there's snow everywhere on the pass. It wasn't too cold, but windy, and a very sunny day.  Many reports on Ebirg.org and from Jay's big year blog, that this IS the place to see . . .

#546 White-tailed Ptargiman

Male(bottom) Female(top)

Holy crap, we just got two Code 2 birds the same day. This is the reason we came to Colorado!!!  Now what??  We where still a couple of hours ahead of schedule, so we refereed to Jay's blog again. He had mentioned stopping at a place on the way back to Denver off I-70. So we decide to stop at Golden, CO at Genesee Park. We dropped down a dirt road, into the park, and went all the way down to the last parking area. We got out and walked down the path, but didn't get too much, a Broad-Tailed Humming bird was very neat, and lifer for Sammy and JK. Back at the car area, we saw this mockingbird type bird, but they don't have mockingbirds at this elevation.  Closer look, white eye-ring, buffy wing patch, long tail . . BAM . . . a Townsend's Solitaire

#547 Towsend's Solitaire

What a neat bird, this was another lucky tick. There had been no good reports of this bird, and we where not even suppose to stop here. Turns out, this location was good for Pygmy Nuthatch and Mountain Chickadees too.  So that was it for day 2; 3 more great life birds, including those Code 2s. We stayed the night in Brighton, CO for an early drive to the Pawnee Grasslands.
  The initial plan was to visit the grasslands just for one bird, the McCown's Longspur, which should be an automatic there. But during the weeks that lead up to our trip, a new place popped near the entrance. Migration was still moving in Colorado, and the Crow Valley Campground gained fame this spring with a Painted Redstart from 5/1-5/3. Turns out, this middle of nowhere campground is really great for birding, lots of warblers, tanagers, and empidx. There is a creek/stream that runs through, and the water was high, but a lot of birds where around it. Including this . . .

Plumbeous Vireo

#548

In 1997, ABA split the Solitary Vireo into three species, the Blue-Headed(East); the Plumbeous(Rockies); the Cassin's(West). Since I get Blue-Headed in Ohio each spring, that just leaves the Cassin's left for  lifer. Next thing we know, where walking around a camp site, and a guy comes up to us and says, "Hey, don't go further this way, there's a . . .

Common Poorwill

Camouflage #549

Common Poorwill

                            Again, holy crap!!! Never thought I would see this bird, didn't even know I need this as a life bird, totally unexpected. Now it's smiley time:) They don't call them Goatsuckers for nothing. On the way back to the car, we decided to walk to the beginning part of the trail, and got Western Tanager, Black-Headed Grosbeak, and this empidx. . .

Cordilleran Flycatcher

#550

                   

Found mostly east of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges, the Cordilleran Flycatcher is a common small yellowish flycatcher of shaded forests. Nearly identical in appearance to the Pacific-slope Flycatcher, the two forms were formerly considered to be the same species, known as the "Western Flycatcher." Split in 1990.

I saw the "Western" in 1986 at the ABA convention in Arizona with Red&Louise. I consider that the Pacific-Slope Flycatcher split seen now. So that leaves just one bird left, and the only one we came here to see . ! . ! .

McCown's Longspur

Best pic, Male in breeding plumage

#551

And this was the only ONE that we saw, just a couple of seconds on the Pawnee Grassland's road to no where. We probably could of chased further around looking for more, but as the Lucky Gambill motto says "One Bird, One Time"
















So with that concludes the winning 12 numbers in tonight's Colorado Bird Lottery, please tune in to later posts for trip round up.

Next Up: Colorado in 60 hours, and 778 miles