[Douglbirds] Prairie Warblers & our backyard

[ouzels8]

We spent Tuesday working in three Atlas blocks in central Elbert County with Doug Kibbe & Mackenzie Goldthwait, so we didn't trek up the trail to look for the Prairie Warbler. (I'm going to work on a message about atlasing results from Elbert, but that'll take a while.)

Besides, we have Prairie Warbler on our Yard List! One worked its way through the scrub oak and mountain mahogany above the house, singing vigorously, on May 29, 2001.

This year's yard list has some new entries -- two nests. Since we had to take down all our bird feeders because they hold such interest to the pair of local bears, the traffic in the yard has diminished quite a bit: no more chickadees, jays, goldfinches, and the like. But the relative calm has led (maybe) to a pair of Cordilleran Flycatchers, now building a nest on a light fixture. Of course, it's right outside the door we use the most, and if on the nest, the bird flushes whenever we go near. I don't think the action of the dog door near it bothers the bird as much as we do. They haven't finished building the nest yet; we hope we don't upset them too much.

On the other side of the house, 10 days ago, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers had a fit over some invisible threat. They scurried around fussing, and eventually one with a stick and one with a spruce needle in their respective bills. Finally, two days ago, I detected the nest, 8-10 feet up in the crotch of a scrub oak branch. With a mirror on a pole, Urling and I looked at it this morning; nothing in it so far, but the gnatcatchers continue to squeak from that oak and some other nearby ones.

In the gully below the house a Red-eyed Vireo seems to have set up a territory. He tried our yard for a few minutes, two or three different days, but then settled down in the big old cottonwoods. That's a new bird for our yard, Number 134, I think.

Hugh Kingery
Franktown, CO 
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