Metro Rarities Jan 2nd and 3rd, 2020

Four days until school starts! We chased Denver metro rarities for two days, all within an hour of the house. Because of all the rare birds we had a couple of long days chasing them from sunrise to sunset.

For those of you who are curious, “rare birds” are birds that appear well outside their normal range (like ocean birds wandering inland or birds from east of the Mississippi showing up along the Rocky Mountains). Many birders want to expand their life list (total species ever seen). The easiest way to do this without traveling to other parts of the country is chasing local rarities. There is also something incredibly thrilling about spotting a super rare bird, for example an Arctic bird in Colorado.

January 2

Bear Creek Lake Park

We started our day looking for the Pacific Wren that has been at Bear Creek Lake Park for more than two weeks. This is a very special little bird. He is extremely rare in Colorado, representing the first record in Jefferson County. Certainly one of our metro rarities! Our experience today was quite different than when we saw him on Christmas Day. He was hiding in cattails near the river and would only sit in view for a second or two before disappearing back into the reeds. You can read more about our first time chasing the Pacific Wren here.

Pacific Wren
Pacific Wren in the willows along Bear Creek.
Pacific Wren
Auto Focus was not my friend…
Pacific Wren
Good picture of the Wren taken by Dad.
Bear Creek Lake Park, Cole Sage
Climbing through the reeds to photograph the Wren.
Song Sparrow
Song Sparrow calling from the willows near the Wren.
Downy Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker in the woods as we looked for the Wren.
Morrison

After locating the Wren, we headed into the town of Morrison. A Golden-crowned Sparrow was seen at a private feeder in town. Although we waited for 45 minutes the sparrow refused to make an appearance. We did see other cool birds at the feeder.

Bushtits
Two Bushtits at the feeder, part of a noisy flock of about 15 of them. The larger bird is a Northern Flicker.
Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay
Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay. This bird is named after Samuel Washington Woodhouse. He was an American naturalist and explorer.
Golden Eagle
One of two Golden Eagles circling over Morrison.
Dark Morph Red-tailed Hawk
Dark Morph Red-tailed Hawk.
horse
Look at that mohawk!! This horse was across the street from the feeders.
Fox Squirrel
Squirrel sleeping in his hole.
Chatfield State Park

Our next stop of the day was Chatfield Lake State Park. Our targets here were White-winged Scoter and Pacific Loon. Both birds have been here for almost a month. They are normally found on ocean waters and rarely appear inland.

White-winged Scoter
Male White-winged Scoter. Look at that enormous bill!
Pacific Loon
Distant Pacific Lo0n.
Hooded Merganser
Male Hooded Merganser.
Northern Shoveler
Look at the bills on those Northern Shovelers!
South Platte Reservoir

After seeing the rare bids at Chatfield, we went across the street to South Platte Reservoir. After scoping the reservoir for 30 minutes Dad spotted our target, a pair of Long-tailed Ducks.

Long-tailed Ducks
Two distant Long-tailed Ducks.
Long-tailed Ducks
Unfortunately these ducks don’t have their namesake long tails which means they are either females or juveniles. Only adult males have the long tails.
South Platte Park
Dad celebrating after spotting the Long-tailed Ducks. After I scoped for 30 minutes Dad looked through the scope for 30 seconds and asked, “what are those white ducks with black eye patches?” He had found the ducks.
Pied-billed Grebe.
Pied-billed Grebe.
Lake Arbor

As the sun began to sink behind the mountains, we arrived at Lake Arbor hoping to see the Brant that we saw a few weeks ago. This is another rare bird for the state of Colorado which we were hoping to see again. Despite scoping the hordes of Canada Geese, we could not find the Brant.

Large flock of Northern Shovelers in the water with Cackling Geese and Gulls on the ice behind them. No Brant.
Common Merganser, one of three seen at lake Arbor.

January 3

Lake Arbor (again)

After our unsuccessful search for the Brant on the second of January we arrived at sunrise to try again, continuing our search for metro rarities. We were greeted by almost 2000 geese on the small unfrozen portion of the lake. After an hour of scoping we finally located the Brant. Within 15 minutes he flew away to forage in areas unknown.

Brant
Brant on the ice shelf.
Brant
Can you spot the Brant in the flock of geese? Hint: look for the white necklace.
Unique Northern Shoveler feeding behavior.
Aurora Reservoir

Next we headed east. Our target bird was the Yellow-billed Loon at Aurora Reservoir. We walked along the entire east side of the reservoir (about four miles) and scoped from the west side. We found two Common Loons and a very distant Yellow-billed Loon. We were unable to photograph the Yellow-billed. A surprise bonus bird was a Red-necked Grebe, but again, the wind made it impossible to photograph.

flock of Canadian and Cackling Geese
Huge flock of Canadian and Cackling Geese at Aurora Reservoir.
Greater White-fronted Goose
Greater White-fronted Goose mixed in with the Cackling Geese.
Ross's Goose
One Ross’s Goose in a flock of Cackling Geese.
Bald Eagle
Bald Eagle flew over the geese flock causing quite a commotion!
American Kestrel
American Kestrel.
Common Loon
Finally a Loon. Not the right bird. A Common Loon sleeping.
Horned Lark
Horned Lark on the trail in front of us.
Horned Lark
He was unafraid of us. You can see the feathers on his head that give him his name.

As we drove home Mom spotted a Snow Goose in a flock of Canada Geese which was our sixth goose species of the day! Colorado normally only gets five species of geese (the Brant is rare) so seeing six in one day is quite unusual!

Awesome but very tiring couple days of chasing metro rarities!

Camera: Nikon COOLPIX P1000, SONY Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V

Optics: Celestron