Morning Birding Species List | September 1, 2015

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015, 7:30AM – 10:30AM
Weather: sunny
Location: Hallam Lake and Aspen Community Garden/Marolt Open Space

Species Identified
Mallard Blue-winged Teal Broad-tailed Hummingbird Belted Kingfisher Northern Flicker Black-billed Magpie American Crow Black-capped Chickadee Mountain Chickadee Red-breasted Nuthatch		House Wren American Robin Cedar Waxwing Green-tailed Towhee Chipping Sparrow Brewer’s Sparrow Song Sparrow Lincoln’s Sparrow White-crowned Sparrow American Goldfinch (pictured above)

Comments:

 

Today’s outing was fruitful, especially at the community garden where mountain shrubland, open grassland, bare ground, sage, and aspen/cottonwood forest fragments form a patchwork of varied habitat surrounding the food-rich garden (for both people and birds; we ogled the peas and kale as much as the birds!). There, we studied various sparrows that presented identification challenges, especially a Brewer’s sparrow. We also observed many hummingbirds (mostly broad-tailed, but probably some black-chinned as well; they were on the move and it wasn’t possible to see all their subtle details well), adult and juvenile green-tailed towhees, and goldfinches in mid-molt. Back at Hallam Lake, we were treated to a kingfisher and a great look at a blue-winged teal (either an adult female or an adult male in eclipse plumage; they are difficult to distinguish at this time of year). For more about eclipse plumage in ducks see:  http://www.flyways.us/duck-identification-resources/eclipse-plumage.

~ Rebecca Weiss, ACES Bird Guide