Mudcat Café message #3316960

January
Canada Goose [Branta canadensis]
Red-tailed Hawk [Buteo jamaicensis]
Eurasian Collared-Dove [Streptopelia decaocto]
Great Horned Owl [Bubo virginianus]
Downy Woodpecker [Picoides pubescens]
Northern Flicker [Colaptes auratus]
Blue Jay [Cyanocitta cristata]
American Crow [Corvus brachyrhynchos]
American Robin [Turdus migratorius]
European Starling [Sturnus vulgaris]
Dark-eyed Junco [Junco hyemalis]
House Finch [Carpodacus mexicanus]
House Sparrow [Passer domesticus]

February
Blue Jay [Cyanocitta cristata]
American Crow [Corvus brachyrhynchos]
Black-capped Chickadee [Poecile atricapillus]
American Robin [Turdus migratorius]
European Starling [Sturnus vulgaris]
House Finch [Carpodacus mexicanus]
American Goldfinch [Spinus tristis]
House Sparrow [Passer domesticus]

The list above is for my home in Louisville, Colorado, USA (near Denver). Everywhere I've birded this year (all in Colorado), I've made 99 species so far.

The "Gullapalooza" day on 2/4 went very well. I saw 41 species, including 11 species of ducks, 4 of grebes, 6 of raptors (including a pair of Bald Eagles copulating on a power line and a Prairie Falcon who dive-bombed us) and 4 of gulls. Two new Lifers:

And I mentioned the out-of-range Greater Roadrunner [Geococcyx californianus] seen in the Denver area. I tried and tried to spot the thing. Six times I was up on the ridge where it was being seen: that is, people were seeing it every day I wasn't there.

Finally, on my seventh trip, on 2/27, I had spent nearly two hours at the location and the time of day he had been seen most commonly. I was giving up and heading back for the car. A passing bicyclist happened to be from Arizona; he saw the bird working its way along the roadbed, recognized it, and realized that its appearance here was very unusual. He took a few pictures of it and saw me up the road about a quarter mile, carrying a telescope with tripod and obviously a birder. He came roaring up to me and shouted that he had seen a Roadrunner and did I want to see it. He showed me where he had seen it, rode back down the hill, and pointed wildly off to one side. I understood (correctly, he came back by later) him to mean that the bird had just gone down the hill right there.

I hurried down to that point and began scanning the hillside below me: no sign of the Roadrunner. For another hour, I hiked up and down the roadbed in increasing arcs, looking down (and UP) the slope, hope fading. Finally, as my time was running out, I headed down the slope again to the parking lot and my car to leave.

On what I decided would be my last look over the edge of the roadbed, I peeked over the edge ... to see the Greater Roadrunner working his way along the slope less than 10 m below me. He was very unconcerned about my presence and I followed him 200 or 300 m as he worked his way along the slope hunting for (presumably) bugs of some kind. He definitely did not catch any snakes (the primary food of the Greater Roadrunner in their usual range), unless they were less than about 3-5 cm in length.

Most common misses so far this year: Northern Pintail [Anas acuta], Ring-necked Pheasant [Phasianus colchicus], Sharp-shinned Hawk [Accipiter striatus], Horned Lark [Eremophila alpestris], and Canyon Wren [Catherpes mexicanus].

And another advertisement, if you're a birder, from serious to completely un-, and you're not using the eBird website <http://ebird.org/>, you're SERIOUSLY missing a bet. (I have no financial or other interest in eBird; I am merely a very satisfied user.)