Young Birders Report July 2021

We went to the Lair o’ the Bear for our July Young Birders’ outing. Lair o’ the Bear is a park with grassland, riparian, and mountain habitats. This enabled us to find many different kinds of species. Nine of us trekked through the trees, over the hill, and along the creek to see birds, flowers, butterflies, trees, and bushes of all varieties.

On our walk, we encountered 29 bird species. I’ve included a full list below. Two highlights of the trip were a Cedar Waxwing and a Lesser Goldfinch. Both were seen perching up in the branches of dead trees. They stayed still long enough for us to get a good look with binoculars and the spotting scope. We got an especially good look at the Cedar Waxwing, which was in a good position for us to observe the bright red tips on its wings.

Some of our 29 species for the day were visually observed, but some we only heard. Birding by ear is a way of identifying birds by their calls. This was extra important today. Bird calls alerted us to the presence of particular birds, some of which we were also able to visually locate.

About the author: Owen Flanagan is on the leadership team of the Denver Audubon’s Young Birders’ Club and he volunteers at the bird banding station with the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies.

Here is a list of all 29 of the birds that we encountered:

• 5 Broad-tailed Hummingbird (1 female seen, males heard)
• 1 Great Blue Heron (seen)
• 1 Cooper’s Hawk (seen carrying prey)
• 1 Red-tailed Hawk (seen)
• 2 Western Wood-Pewee (seen)
• 3 Cordilleran Flycatcher (heard only)
• 1 Western Kingbird (seen)
• 2 Warbling Vireo (heard only)
• 2 American Crow (seen and heard)
• 2 Black-capped Chickadee (seen and heard)
• 4 Mountain Chickadee (heard)
• 3 Violet-green Swallow (seen and heard)
• 1 Cliff Swallow (seen)
• 2 White-breasted Nuthatch (seen and heard)
• 1 Pygmy Nuthatch (heard only)
• 2 House Wren (heard)
• 1 American Dipper (seen)
• 3 Gray Catbird (seen and heard)
• 2 American Robin (seen)
• 4 Cedar Waxwing (seen and heard)
• 6 Lesser Goldfinch (seen and heard)
• 1 American Goldfinch (heard only)
• 3 Song Sparrow (seen and heard)
• 4 Spotted Towhee (seen and heard)
• 1 Bullock’s Oriole (seen)
• 1 MacGillivray’s Warbler (heard only)
• 4 Yellow Warbler (seen and heard)
• 2 Western Tanager (seen female and heard)
• 1 Lazuli Bunting (heard only)

Number of Taxa: 29

Bird Photos by Jamie Simo

Photos of trip by Owen Flanagan