What a beautiful Colorado fall day! There are not many places like this in the US, if I do say so myself, especially this time a year. The trees were still gorgeous and the temperature perfect. Maybe there were not a lot of birds today, but the walk was still very enjoyable for all.
The first birds we saw were the ever dependable House Finches – singing away! Though very abundant, House Finches do thrive very well. The males do not always have red breast coloring Once in a while, depending on what the eat, the male breast can be orange or even yellow in coloring.
We got a fantastic view of a Great Blue Heron right by the South Platte river. It sat still for a moment, but after seeing us, as we were getting maybe to close, it took to flight. We saw it lift its large wings into the air and fly right past us! The Great Blue Heron is in the wading bird family, such as Bitterns, Herons and Egrets. They have spear like bills and seize prey with lightning -quick forward strikes. We all cheered in delight!
Making our way along the South Platte river, we noticed many ducks are returning here to their wintering grounds. Our walk takes us over a bridge for another look at the ducks, and right into the riparian area for some Chickadees, Northern Flickers, American Robins, and another fun find, a juvenile Coopers Hawk! We noticed he was still a little unsure of himself when it came to hunting.
We finally made our way to the Hudson Gardens feeders for a good look at Dark- eyed Juncos , Blue Jays, and White breasted-Nuthatches. Truly a wonderful morning with our new birding friends! We spotted a total of 23 species , which we thought was not too bad.
ebird Checklist share here: https://ebird.org/mychecklists?subID=Uzk2ODk2MjMz&s=t
Patti
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