Poudre Canyon Area and Carter Lake 1/13

This morning Cade Cropper and I drove up to Kristi Williams house to look for a Brown Thrasher that has been hanging out. Her house is by Rustic up the Poudre Canyon. Her house was very birdy. We saw a lot of mountain species including Cassin's Finch (105), Steller's Jay, Pine Siskin, Mountain Chickadee, etc. I eventually watched the Brown Thrasher (106) fly into a Blue Spruce. It then flew into a couple of Aspens before landing in the yard behind the bird bath. We also saw it a couple of times in the back yard underneath the table scattered with bird seed. Brown Thrasher is an uncommon bird in Larimer County as I am expecting to see a few of them this year, but a Brown Thrasher in Larimer County in the winter is very rare. Thank you Kristi for letting us visit your great yard and nice find on this Brown Thrasher.

                                                     Brown Thrasher

                                                     Cassin's Finch

                                                     Pine Siskin

                                                     Steller's Jay

On our way down the Poudre Canyon we decided to watch closely for dippers along the mostly frozen Poudre River. Towards the bottom on the canyon I finally found an American Dipper (107) standing on the ice next to the open water. It was right next to a pulloff, so we were able to pull over and watch the bird for a few minutes.

                                                    American Dipper

Our last stop in the area was to look for a Red-bellied Woodpecker that has been coming to a feeder at a house in Bellvue. I have only visited these feeders once and that was about five years ago. After driving south on the road I realized I passed the house and had to turn around. While we were waiting for some cars to pass by I noticed a strange looking hawk fly by. It looked big with a long tail. First thought was an accipiter, but with the size it could only be one bird. After waiting to get a field mark it banked and I saw the gray chest and belly. Then, it turned its head with a large white Supercillium. I was right, it was a Northern Goshawk (108).

                                                    Northern Goshawk

                                                    Northern Goshawk
At this house we got to talk to the home owner and he said that the Red-bellied Woodpecker is still around, but the wind had picked up. While looking for about 20 minutes in this very windy area we were not able to find the Red-bellied, but did see two Downy Woodpeckers and a Northern Flicker.

                                                  Downy Woodpecker

I arrived at Carter Lake at 4:00 PM to watch the gulls come in to roost. Unfortunately a 4:30 the wind really picked up and by 4:45 I decided it was blowing to bad to be able to identify anything. Unfortunately, there were still a few hundred gulls I could see still coming in and perhaps more I couldn't see. It was still an amazing sight there this evening before the wind picked up. Among the hundreds of Ring-billed and Herring Gulls I was able to find many interesting birds. These include 2 California Gulls (2 1st winter) (109), 12 Thayer's Gulls (8 juvenile and 4 adults), 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (1 1st winter, 2 2nd winter), 1 Glaucous Gull (juvenile), and 1 Nelson's Gull = Glaucous Gull x Herring Gull Hybrid (juvenile).