Inland, Dreaming of Waves

Dedication or wallflower?

Saturday morning: more birding.

I wanted to get up extra early, but the best I could manage was to get to Gregory Canyon, at the very bottom of Flagstaff Road where it meets Baseline, at about 7 or 7:30 (keep in mind it's a 20-minute drive). I was afraid that the tiny circular lot would have filled up, but it hadn't--I snagged a prime spot. Then I traipsed up to the trailhead and started climbing. On the way I watched a Macgillivray's warbler singing. Two weeks ago, I went on a birding trip with a man who can bird by ear. He said if we wanted to learn to recognize bird calls, we had to watch the bird singing--about a 1,000 times. Between this morning and the trip with him, I figure I've made it to at least 30. There are a lot of bird songs blending together in my head. By the end of this summer, I hope to sort out a number of them--to know the birds by their sound. That way I can become one of those cool birders who point to the left and identify a bird and then whip over to the right and find two more.

Right now, I just fucking hate people like that.

I've decided I'll be spending a lot of time at Gregory Canyon this summer. If you hike up to the Bowl, you can look out over Boulder and see, from right to left, Baseline Reservoir, Valmont Reservoir with the power plant, and Boulder Reservoir. The birds there are songbirds that I don't get in my backyard.

Here's my list:

house finch, which I tried to make into a purple finch
warbling vireo
plumbleous vireo
Western tanager, male and female
spotted towhee, singing
green-tailed towhee, singing
Virginia's warbler
lazuli bunting--just a turquoise flash
yellow-breasted chat
catbird--I meowed at it, and it flew away--was I too catty?
chickadee calling
blue-gray gnatcatcher
turkey vultures in a "kettle" (that is, a flock)
a light red-tailed hawk--may have been a Krider's, but I'm reluctant to pretend I know what I'm talking about here. It could also have been a ferruginous hawk, but I don't remember an all white belly--it attacked some of the vultures
black-headed grosbeak
grackles
robins
violet-green swallow

Birders have their own language. I birded once with Wayne and Diana Johnson, who are experts on raptors (hawks, falcons, and eagles but not owls), and they talked about PFs (can't remember whether that was prairie or peregrine falcons), roughies (rough-legged hawks), red-tails (that's pretty obvious), ferrug (ferruginous hawks), balds and goldens (eagles), sharpies (sharp-shinned hawks), and so on. It seems that birders are always abbreviating the names of birds, as if the act of putting binoculars to our eyes short-circuits the speech centers in the brain.

posted by Price of Silence @ 9:04 AM