‘Twas a misty moisty morning at the Lost Creek trailhead this past Saturday, and our group had to contend with a few little drizzling rain episodes and the trail being a bit slippery.  Birds were few and far between and we spent some of our initial time identifying plants and marveling at the extensive number and size of this year’s mushrooms.  By ten o’clock, having hiked a ways up Lost Creek with few birds to speak of, I turned our group around thinking that maybe we could at least go back to our cars, drive down to Evergreen Lake, and see some birds there.  However, once we were back within about a quarter of a mile of our cars, big things started to happen!

There are ten species of owls that have been reported from the Bear Creek Watershed, but how many have you seen around here?  We were very lucky to get a brief glimpse of a male Long-eared Owl perched at eye-level in a spindly aspen.  A couple of us (not me, unfortunately) noted the yellow eyes and noticeable ear-tufts.  Then, in Anne Craig’s photograph, you can make out at least one of the dark wing patches just distal to the carpal (wrist) region, as well as the whitish-buff underside with strong dark brown streaking and barring, and, finally, you can just make out the ear-tufts sticking above the head. Pretty cool!

Shortly after the owl, we stumbled into a mixed-species insectivorous flock of woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches, and warblers accompanied by some granivorous Chipping Sparrows and Gray-headed Juncos.  These mixed-species flocks tend to come together in areas of high food availability and rather than seeking to avoid competition with one another individual birds appear to rely on one another to find food.  A second possible rationale for these aggregations, and this may be particularly true for the woodpeckers, is that if there are more eyes to detect predators then the risk of being eaten is reduced if an individual is surrounded by other birds who can be potential prey.  These mixed flocks are a common occurrence year-round in the tropics, but in the temperate region they mostly occur outside of the breeding season, i.e, during migration and during the winter.  Needless to say, we hit a hotbed of activity that kept us busy for quite a while.  Highlights included two American Three-toed Woodpeckers, two Audubon’s Warblers, and a single Wilson’s Warbler.  A begging juvenile Hairy Woodpecker kept hounding mom for food the entire time, and fly-over Red Crossbills and Clark’s Nutcrackers filled the air with their calls as well.

Good birding!

Chuck

Lost Creek, Aug 20, 2022 
23 species, 10 participants

Broad-tailed Hummingbird  6
Sharp-shinned Hawk  1
Long-eared Owl  1
American Three-toed Woodpecker  2
Downy Woodpecker  3
Hairy Woodpecker  2
Olive-sided Flycatcher  1
Cordilleran Flycatcher  1
Steller’s Jay  3
Clark’s Nutcracker  14
Common Raven  2
Black-capped Chickadee  6
Mountain Chickadee  12
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  4
Pygmy Nuthatch  6
Brown Creeper  1
House Wren  3
Red Crossbill  10
Chipping Sparrow  13
Dark-eyed Junco (Gray-headed)  12
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)  2
Wilson’s Warbler  1