ACES Morning Birding at Hallam Lake 7/30/2024

Tuesday, July 24, 2024, 7:00-10:00am
Weather: Sunny
Location: Hallam Lake, Aspen, CO

Today’s outing was unique and amazing! As often happens, the birding right out of ACES’ parking lot was exciting right away: a Cooper’s hawk was perched in the cottonwoods overhead as we started onto the Post Office Trail. The hawk, who flew among the surrounding trees elicited alarm calls and a bit of mobbing from the songbirds of the neighborhood. Two broad-tailed hummingbirds even joined in with the mobbing. In the same part of the cottonwood canopy, we also saw several interesting warblers, one of which had a complete white eye-ring, gray head and upperparts, and bright yellow undertail coverts – although we weren’t able to land on a confident ID for it. With this non-stop action and entertainment for the first 45 minutes of the outing, we were all mesmerized! When the Cooper’s hawk finally left and flew far, we all spontaneously broke into applause! After chuckling at ourselves, we then focused the scope on the osprey platform and enjoyed observing the activities of that “household” before birding our way into the Hallam Lake preserve. Other highlights from the morning included a couple families of yellow warblers feeding fledglings among the willows, nesting cedar waxwings, swallow fledglings being fed by their parents, finding a dipper on the river, and spotting a gang of pygmy nuthatches in the cottonwoods. Join us tomorrow for a special outing in partnership with the City of Aspen Open Space & Trails program to the Maroon Creek Wetlands and Maroon Creek Gorge Trail!

Species List:

~ Rebecca Weiss, ACES Bird Guide

Featured photo: Cedar Waxwing.