After three days of searching for the Pacific Wren we finally found him on Christmas morning! He was first seen on December 23rd at Bear Creek Lake Park. The Wren’s range is normally the Pacific Coast. This bird represents the first record ever for Jefferson County, Colorado.
I’ve only seen this bird once before in Rocky Mountain National Park. A nesting pair of Pacific Wrens had taken up residence within the park. We hiked six miles to find the birds.
December 23rd
I received eBird’s notification at 10:14 am on the 23rd that a Pacific Wren had been found by Chris Wood at Bear Creek Lake Park. I got there as quickly as possible after hearing the news, arriving around noon. My mom and I birded the area where the wren had been found for 3 ½ hours. No wren!
December 24th
Not to be defeated by this bird, I brought my dad for an extra set of eyes. The three of us arrived at 10:45. The bird had been seen at 10:30 by many people. When we arrived it was nowhere to be found. We searched for an hour and a half before cutting our losses and heading to Chatfield Reservoir for some rare waterfowl.
Bear Creek
Chatfield State Park
December 25th
Birding on Christmas Day was nothing new to us, having spent the holidays last year in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Because the bird was seen around sunrise the previous two days we arrived early to have the best chance of finding him. We got to the park at 7:30 and were the first birders to arrive. We searched high and low for 30 minutes and were joined by several other birders. The bird was finally located around 8:00 and gave us excellent views. As had been reported he was quite chatty and happy to sit still just feet away from us.
Camera: Nikon COOLPIX P1000, SONY Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V
Optics: Celestron
