Gyrfalcon in Colorado and More December Birding

December tends to be a slow month for birding in Colorado but I attempted to make the most of my time off school to add as many species as I could to my Big Year list. Well, it turned out that not many birds I needed showed up. I spent a lot of time trying to photograph birds that I had missed pictures of earlier in the year. The one bird I was hoping to see during this month was the Gyrfalcon that had been seen the past 2 winters in Colorado.

Several rare birds were located at the base of the dam at Chatfield Reservoir around a beaver pond. The bird I was most excited about seeing was this Rusty Blackbird. It was the first time I was able to photograph one this year.

In the area where I saw the Rusty Blackbird I spotted this Pine Warbler, my third in the state in 2020. It had a deformed bill with a very long upturned lower mandible but seemed to be able to feed.

Another unusual bird around the beaver pond was this Swamp Sparrow.

One of the birds I struggled to photograph the most this year was Lapland Longspur. Despite hearing and seeing them fly multiple times I was never able to get a picture. I finally got pictures of one at Jumbo Reservoir in the north eastern corner of the state.

Several days later we spent the morning near the town of Grover which is less than 5 miles from the Wyoming border. We were searching for Short-eared Owls and Sharp-tailed Grouse. Although we didn’t find any owls we did see two small flocks of grouse (10-15). I managed to get several pictures of two that flew right over us and landed in a distant field.

Finally another rare bird appeared that I needed for my list! It was the Gyrfalcon which has taken up residence around the landfill in Fort Collins for the last three years. This arctic wanderer was way out of range! The Gyrfalcon was a nemeses bird for me because it had been around the previous two years, but I had missed it 16 times. I had spent countless hours standing on the dirt road south of the landfill attempting to see the falcon but always seemed to just miss it. When we pulled up on this trip the bird was nowhere to be seen. Again. But within 30 minutes it flew in and landed right above us. What a bird!

My last new species of the year came in the early hours of the the morning on December 14th in Pueblo. We searched around Pueblo Reservoir for Western Screech-Owls. The most incredible thing we saw during our search was not the owls but the countless shooting stars that rained down as we listened for owls. Finally, shortly before sunrise we heard a Western Screech-Owl although we weren’t able to see it because it was too far away.

Another bird that I had some trouble photographing this year was Ladder-backed Woodpecker. These birds are year-round residents in the southeastern corner of the state but it took until December 14th to get pictures of one.

Fox Sparrow (Sooty) — One of the rarest birds I saw during the month of December was this Fox Sparrow. Although some Fox Sparrows breed in Colorado this bird is in the Sooty Subspecies which is only found along the Pacific Coast. This is the first eBird record of this Subspecies in Colorado!

One of my favorite birds of the upper elevation forest, the Canada Jay. These birds are very friendly and came within several feet of us.

American Dipper standing on a chunk of ice in Bear Creek. They often dive into freezing mountain streams to catch aquatic insects.

A juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was hanging around Hudson Gardens for several days and we went and saw it on Christmas Eve. These Sapsuckers show up in Colorado along the front range in winter but are never common.

I saw the last rare bird of the year in Lakewood on December 29th. This bird was a male White-winged Crossbill visiting a private feeder. I heard a White-winged Crossbill early in January but it took until the end of the year to see and photograph this species.

Wow what a year it was. Full year recap coming soon!!