This past Saturday morning was blue-cold, but it was definitely worth getting out for the birds. More water was open at Waneka than during my scouting mission, but there were still few water birds around because of the Bald Eagle sitting on the ice busily plucking an unlucky goose. It wasn’t clear whether the goose had already been dead prior to its defeatherstration, but given that Bald Eagles will happily scavenge when given the opportunity, and the rampancy of avian flu in goose populations right now, it’s more than likely.
What was also pretty cool to watch were the Common Ravens coming within inches of the Bald Eagle, a mortal enemy, to take what they could get from the carcass. The Bald Eagle was unbothered, but that wasn’t the case for one American Crow that kept dive-bombing and chasing one of the ravens; ravens will definitely prey on smaller songbirds like crows despite being in the same family group (Corvidae).
With few ducks and geese about, we spent most of our time looking at songbirds. Sparrows were particularly abundant and it was great to be able to compare White-crowned Sparrows to House Sparrows. At the Greenlee feeders we also were lucky to see the White-throated Sparrow that’s been hanging around and see the difference between it and the White-crowned. Both species are in the Zonotrichia genus, but White-throated Sparrows are mainly found in the east and along the west coast. More are being found along the Front Range every winter, however. While both species have head stripes, White-throated Sparrows have the eponymous white throat as well as yellow lores.
For a cloudy, bitterly cold morning, we had 24 species, which wasn’t bad at all!
Waneka Lake/Greenlee Preserve, Boulder, Colorado, US
24 species
Canada Goose 28
Green-winged Teal 1
Ring-necked Duck 1
Common Goldeneye 1
Eurasian Collared-Dove 1
Ring-billed Gull 15
Bald Eagle 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Northern Flicker 5
Blue Jay 8
Black-billed Magpie 1
American Crow 3
Common Raven 5
Black-capped Chickadee 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
European Starling 15
American Robin 7
House Sparrow 6
House Finch 2
White-crowned Sparrow 12
White-throated Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 1
Spotted Towhee 6
Red-winged Blackbird 15
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