Ferruginous Hawk Archives - Birds on the Wing

I have five days until school starts. There are a lot of rare birds in Colorado right now, so I decided to try and see as many as possible in the first week of the year! Day one – New Year’s Day.

Trilby Road Gyrfalcon Stakeout

Today, the rare bird reports (cobirds Google Group and eBird) took us to Fort Collins birding destinations. Our first target was the Gyrfalcon near Larimer County Landfill. He has been seen for the past two winters at this location but has evaded us on all 11 of our previous trips to find him. Today was no exception. Despite searching for 4 hours the Gyr never made an appearance. Even though the falcon was not present we saw other fascinating birds.

Cole Sage at Larimer County Landfill — Zooming in… way in!

Northern Harrier hunting right before sunrise.

Thayer's Gull — Thayer’s Gull circling over the landfill. *Seen from Trilby Road.*

Larimer County Landfill — More gulls at the Landfill seen from Trilby Road. Who knew that landfills were such good birding destinations!? They draw a wide range of gulls and other garbage eaters.

Merlin, not the right falcon, but a falcon nonetheless…

Ferruginous Hawk, still not a Gyrfalcon even though he’s on the falcon’s favorite perch.

Grandview Cemetery

Our next stop was Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins. Our target here was the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. After a few hours of searching we finally located him. Thanks to Joe Mammoser for helping us find the bird; I had met Joe last year looking for the Gyrfalcon and it was great to see him again.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker hiding in a pine tree.

Cole Sage, Beth Sage And Joe Mammoser — Mom, Joe and I looking at the sapsucker.

Union Reservoir

After successfully seeing the Sapsucker we drove to Union Reservoir in Longmont to look for two Tundra Swans. The Swans were nowhere to be found. However, there was a very friendly Kestrel with freshly caught dinner.

The smallest Falcon in North America, the American Kestrel.

While driving home we saw a truly incredible spectacle. Near the town of Frederick we saw two gigantic groups of geese. The first flock was made of multiple connected flying ‘V’s of Canadian Geese spanning the evening sky numbering well over 5000 birds. The second flock was another 3000 Canadians on the ground in a corn field with more geese landing to join them as we drove by. Unfortunately, it was too dark for decent pictures by that time. An amazing site!!

What a terrific New Year’s Day to start 2020!

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

Optics: Celestron

Because there were no rare birds in the area, and we had a free afternoon Dad and I decided to head to Cherry Creek State Park. We birded the West Shades, Lake Loop, Pelican Point, and the Swim Beach. The lake was only frozen around the edges so there were still good numbers of waterfowl on the water. Although we didn’t see any rare birds on this trip, we saw several fun birds and their interesting behavior! Its’s nice having such a wonderful birding location just ten minutes from my house.

Kingfisher

As soon as we arrived at the lake Dad saw something drop out of a tree towards the water. He thought it must have been a Magpie. When I looked over, I saw a Belted Kingfisher with a fish almost as big as him fly into a tree near us. He repeatedly smacked it into a branch. He eventually ate the fish whole!

Kingfisher with his fish.

Diving Ducks

On the lake we had good views of several common winter ducks. They were all diving ducks and continuously dived in search of prey.

Raptors

We spotted a juvenile Ferruginous Hawk perched on the ground in an open field. After sitting in the field for several minutes he took flight into the distance. There was also a Red-tailed Hawk perched nearby.

Great Horned Owl

While walking through the woods we spotted an owl fly into a tree just above us. We slowly backed away so we didn’t spook him. He eventually fell asleep as we watched him.

What an awesome afternoon of watching the local bird life at Cherry Creek State park!