These Dawn Chorus gatherings are truly great!   Not only did our group of 40 participants end up eventually with a wonderful variety of birds (43 species), but, as usual, we had an equally diverse offering of palate-pleasing breakfast foods and coffee.

In April in Colorado it’s pretty much a guarantee that any birding outing is going to knock your socks off. This is pretty much what happened to our group on Saturday, and lots of socks were flying around as we recorded fifty-five species.  

Fifty-nine species is a pretty successful outing, especially with such birds as Sandhill Cranes, a Burrowing Owl, a Loggerhead Shrike, and a Marsh Wren.

Perhaps the bird of the day was one that we didn’t see, but which honored us by vocalizing loudly while buried in some cattails within ten feet of us.

In winter, on a semi-snowy day three species of Rosy-Finches can often be found just a bit west of Evergreen up in the spruce-fir forest above 8500 ft.  In visiting a few homes up towards Mestaa’ehehe Peak, we saw over 300 Brown-capped and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches, and a couple of Black Rosies. 

One of the more enjoyable birding ventures to pursue each year is to go out in search of winter raptors. And there are a couple of species that are only found here in the winter: Rough-legged Hawk and Merlin.

The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is a global four-day event, being held this year from Friday, February 14, through Monday, February 17, 2025. You are encouraged to count birds at your feeders for as little as fifteen minutes during this four-day period.  Results will be found on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.

Having been thwarted in finding any loons at Chatfield Reservoir which was completely frozen over, we chose to seek open water elsewhere at nearby South Platte Reservoir which has aerators that keep the water open.