One of the challenges in setting up these Evergreen Audubon bird walks weeks ahead of time is that one can never know what the weather will be up to on the day of the outing.  For most of these bird walks it’s not essential that the weather be “nice,” but when one would like to see Rosy-Finches it’s beneficial if it has snowed the night before, or is still lightly snowing, and if the wind isn’t being too outrageous.  Unfortunately, neither of these conditions were met for our Sunday outing.  The sky was clear, the wind was blowing quite a bit, and then the wind blew harder.  Fortunately, our first visit was to a home in a somewhat sheltered valley, and we ended up getting great looks at a few Rosy-Finches.

Rosy-Finches belong to the genus Leucosticte “white-spotted” perhaps due to an Asian relative the Black-headed Mountain-Finch that has a fair amount of spotting. Our three North American species the Brown-capped, Gray-crowned, and Black all seem to have derived from a common ancestor that originally came over from Asia, where there are four additional congeners (species in the same genus).  Two of our North American Rosies, the Brown-capped and the Black, are now considered Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.  Climate change is reducing the high alpine habitat preferred by these birds and both our endangered species have limited ranges to begin with; the Brown-capped is almost endemic to the state of Colorado.

Here along the Front Range the Black Rosy-Finch is generally the least common of the three species and we saw none on our outing.  However, we did get excellent looks at a couple of Brown-capped and two subspecies of the Gray-crowned.  Most of our Gray-crowned have the gray just above the eye, but about 5-10 percent of them can be the Hepburn’s subspecies (from the Pacific Northwest) where the whole side of the head is gray.

Additionally, mixed in with the Rosies, we got wonderful looks at Cassin’s Finches and Red Crossbills along with the usual chickadees, nuthatches, and juncos.

Our visits to a couple of other houses padded our list of chickadees, but we saw no additional Rosies.  The wind was a definite deterrent.

And finally, breeding season is upon us.  Great Horned Owls are on nest, Red-tailed Hawks are nest-building, and the ducks are getting fairly sex-crazed.  It’s time to start getting out a bit more frequently.

Chuck

Mestaa’ehehe Pass
Feb 25, 2024
15 species (+2 other taxa)
13 Participants

Downy Woodpecker  1
Steller’s Jay  1
American Crow  2
Black-capped Chickadee  2
Mountain Chickadee  31
White-breasted Nuthatch  4
Pygmy Nuthatch  11
Red-breasted Nuthatch  6
Brown Creeper  1
Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (Hepburn’s)  1
Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (Gray-crowned)  16
Brown-capped Rosy-Finch  2
Cassin’s Finch  21
Red Crossbill  15
Pine Siskin  1
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)  1
Dark-eyed Junco (Gray-headed)  6