Birding in Colorado in April is well known to birders as the "Chicken Trip" . In this case, we are referring to Prairie Chickens which do a breeding dance on "leks" that warrants National Geographic TV episode. There are 2 species of Prairie Chickens - Lesser and Greater but the "Chicken Trip" also includes 4 species of Grouse which also do the displays - Gunnison, Sharp-tailed, Dusky and Greater Sage Grouse. Nature tour companies run trips to Colorado for 10 days to see all 6 species plus other Colorado birds. Todd and I did it in 4 days.
I admit, the agenda that I set for our Colorado trip was ambitious. I think Todd was worried but the itinerary actually worked out great. We now refer to our trip as the Non-Chicken Trip since we saw all of the Grouse but neither of the Prairie Chickens. We cut out the chickens due to the location of those leks being really far away. We would have needed 2 more days to get to those. Plus, the chickens can actually be found in other states.
We started our grouse trip in Gunnison located in the southwest part of the state where there is a very rare Gunnison's Sage Grouse. Gunnison is the only place in the world to see this grouse and the wildlife rangers are very strict about viewing the lek. There are a million rules:
Arrive 1 hour before dawn
Park in designated spots (NOT ON THE ROAD!)
No headlights
No talking
Stay in your car
Remain at the lek until all birds are finished displaying
With all of these rules, you would think that the birds would be really close and skittish. Turns out, this was our view. I had to use red arrows to point out the birds. The ridge was 1 kilometer away.
Gunnison Sage Grouse lek
The birds started displaying at 6 AM. By 6:45, we were bored. The wildlife office told us that they would be finished by 10 AM. Good thing neither of us are rule followers. We left at 6:45!
On to our next quarry - Dusky Grouse which can also be seen near Gunnison at the Black Canyon park. Although many birders find the Dusky here, they usually do not see them displaying since these birds do not use a lek. When we arrived at the canyon, we ran into a birder who we know from New Jersey - Tom Johnson. Tom is an excellent birder and a professional tour guide. He had 2 vans of birders looking for Dusky Grouse and found one on the side of the road. Todd and I stopped to view that bird and found 2 more further up the road. Then we found this guy actually displaying. You can see the red air sacs on his neck and the yellow eyebrows.
Dusky Grouse display
Later that day, we headed north to Hayden in search of Sharp-tailed Grouse. We found a hotel and headed out before dawn again to get to the lek that another Jersey tour guide located a few days before. It paid off. We saw a few Sharp-tailed grouse but didn't see them displaying.
Sharp-tailed Grouse
3 down, 1 to go. Off to Walden to see if we could find Greater Sage Grouse on the lek. We arrived at 8:45 and found only one bird hiding in the sage brush. Reports on the Internet indicated that there were over 100 birds at this lek but we arrived too late. No worries, we found other birds that day and got a hotel room. The next day, we arrived at dawn and found a spectacle of booming grouse on the lek. Greater Sage Grouse as far as we could next to the dirt road. This was the nature show that we came for.
We spent 2 hours watching the display. I shot 2000 photos.
Greater Sage Grouse Lek
I couldn't stop myself. Here are just a few. The males gulp air to inflate balloons in their chest, puff up their necks and display their tails to impress the females.
"Boomer"
Impressive
Like most males involved in impressing females, they often fight. Here are 2 of them squaring off.
Squaring Off
Feathers flying. They beat each other with wings until one runs away.
Fisticuffs
Meanwhile, the females casually wander around the lek looking for the most impressive male. When the females wander off, some of the males leave the lek or rest for a bit. Here is one resting.
Chillin'
The birds have paparazzi.
The obvious question is: Why did the chicken cross the road? Answer: Sex!
After all of the birders and most of the birds left the lek, this male kept at it. Click the play button on the video.
He was rewarded (if you know what I mean) by this female. Believe me, this photo is the G-rated version. I have X-rated versions too.
Gettin' Jiggy
No romance here. He hit it and quit it. Off they flew into the sage. It was all over before 8 AM.
Wow, what a depressing winter huh? Considering the last few posts, you would have thought that there was no hope for good birding. Well that changed over the weekend when I went along with a gang of other crazy birders to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. You read that right.. 7 of us rented a van and DROVE to Canada for the WEEKEND to look for birds. Our target birds were rare visitors from Europe that ended up in North America and others that are northern specialties. We scored big time!
We left my house at 1 PM on Friday, met the rest of the group in north Jersey at 4 PM and headed north. We took turns driving and ended up in Nova Scotia at 7 AM. We were almost immediately rewarded with our first target bird - Spruce Grouse. This Dapper Dan was sitting next to the snow covered road like he was waiting for us to arrive. He allowed us to oooh and aaaah and snap photos for 10 minutes. We left him, not the other way around.
Spruce Grouse
Here is a close up of his face. Interesting to see that his chin feathers look like a beard.
Spruce Grouse
Off we went to a little town of Apple something in search of a European vagrant that has spent weeks in someone's yard.
Fieldfare
Fieldfare reminds me of our Robin but has different markings. We found the house and the bird easily. The homeowner saw the 15 passenger van pull up and came out to greet us. Nice guy. He made us sign a book. I was number 125 to view the bird. Here are numbers 118 - 125. A mottlie crew for sure. Ken and Lisa, Alyssa, me in the front. Brandon, the homeowner Blain, Larry and Deidra behind us. Fun stuff.
Northern Bird Gang
We also saw a few other favorites like these Snow Buntings which we usually see on open ground like fields or the beach. None of us can remember ever seeing them in trees like this.
Snow Buntings
A flock of Evening Grosbeaks were also there. I cannot resist taking photos of this bird. Here is one that is cropped pretty tight. you can see that distinctive eyebrow.
Evening Grosbeak - male
Here is a wider zoom. You can see the difference between male and female.
Evening Grosbeaks
Larry had our route all mapped out and pointed us to our next target - Mew Gull in Dartmouth. We showed up at the little town lake and had great views of ducks and other gulls but no Mew Gulls. Luckily a local guy came along and told us that the gulls were (where else) at the shopping center parking lot. We drove over and found our quarry easily. Unfortunately for me, something went wrong when I tried to download the photos and I lost photos of the gull and ducks. Suffice to say that they were awesome :-)
It was just about lunchtime so we grabbed a sandwich and headed north past Halifax to a little golf course where a Eurasian Kestral has been hanging out. This is a small falcon that looks similar to our Kestral. I saw one in Scotland last summer. Click here to see that post. My photos from Scotland and Nova Scotia are equally pathetic. Here is the Nova Scotia bird perched in a pine tree. By the time we showed up, the wind was howling which made photos difficult.
Eurasian Kestrel
With all targets checked off of our list, we headed out to Prince Edward Island to find a nice hot meal and hotel for the night. Mind you, we had all been up for over 24 hours by this point. Signs like this were all over the highway - "Lookout for giant moose eating cars". Ee-gads.
Once in PEI, we had a great meal and settled down for the night. The next morning, we headed out to find grouse but struck out on all counts. Finding grouse in any condition is tough but with 5 feet of snow on the ground it is impossible.
Snow Bank
Most of the group opted to give up much to the dismay of a few others who wanted to keep looking. I had to be at work on Monday morning, so wanted to get home as fast as possible. We had 13 hour drive ahead of us. 13 hours of hard driving straight south. Of course, birders are wired to scan trees at all times in hopes of finding something good. We do this while driving all of the time. Deirdre yelled "Barred Owl!" and the van came to a screeching halt on the shoulder of I-95 in Maine. We made a few illegal u-turns and sure enough, she was right. This beauty sat there in broad daylight! This is full frame photo - no cropping.
Barred Owl
This is how close we were to the owl. Alyssa and I did a "selfie" through the van window.
Selfie with Barred Owl
That capped off a great trip! Here is a map of our travel - 2000 miles in less than 3 days. Crazy!
Connie and I headed up to the camp in Potter County (God's Country) this weekend to winterize the cabin. It's a good thing we went this weekend. It was 28 degrees on Saturday morning which would definitely freeze the pipes if it stayed that cold for a few days. The camp was in tip top shape and hardly took any effort at all to winterize. That left us with time to wander around hiking and birdwatching. Here are some photos and stories.
Sparrows are definitely the biggest migrants at the moment. I got good looks, but lousy photos of Fox Sparrow.
Fox Sparrow
Also have a mystery sparrow which I want to call White-throated which
are quite common, but this bird didn't look quite right. Any
suggestions would be appreciated. I know it is a terrible photo.
Mystery Sparrow
Here is something that you don't see very often - a Pileated Woodpecker hanging from a grape vine in the parking lot at Sinnemahoning State Park. This guy (yes, male identified by the red mustache) squawked from the woods, then flew into view and picked at the grapes for a few minutes. In case you don't know much about Pileated Woodpeckers, they are our largest woodpecker - about the size of a crow - and usually chisel out large channels in trees digging out bugs and grubs. That is what made this encounter so odd. Connie and I just stood there and gawked. (I just used squawked and gawked in the same story)
Pileated Woodpecker
Another unusual sighting this weekend was this Roughed Grouse. We see them around the camp quite often, but we usually see just their butts as they fly out of sight. Not this bird. He/she flew up onto a branch and watched me take photographs for about 5 minutes before flying away, giving me great views of his/her crest and face pattern. Naturally, the lighting was terrible in the woods before 8 AM, but I got a photo worth keeping.
Roughed Grouse
Oh, did I mention that hunting season is in full swing and we feared for our lives while in the woods? Bow season, small game season, and muzzle loader season have the woods packed with men trying to kill something. Luckily, we had some blaze orange garments to wear. We took a ride up on Ridge Road and had our photo taken at one of the vistas. Bloopers too. Did you ever notice that the dog will never look at the camera when you have it on a timer? Dag nabbit!
Blooper
After 3 or 4 attempts with me running back and forth to the camera which was propped up on the camera bag which was teetering on a rock, the dog looked in the general direction of the camera as the shutter snapped. Ain't we pretty in orange?
