Magpie Archives - Birds on the Wing

After three days of searching for the Pacific Wren we finally found him on Christmas morning! He was first seen on December 23^rd 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 23^rd

I received eBird’s notification at 10:14 am on the 23^rd 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!

Belted Kingfisher having a bad hair day…

Northern Flicker Feather — Northern Flicker feather.

Pacific Wren location Bear Creek — Bear Creek.

December 24^th

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

American Dipper foraging along the creek

Chatfield State Park

The other rare bird: a Red-necked Grebe.

December 25^th

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.

Our little friend the Pacific Wren calling.

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!

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

Optics: Celestron

Tag: Magpie

Pacific Wren

December 23^rd