ACES Morning Birding at Rock Bottom Ranch 6/25/2024
Phebe Meyers
July 15, 2024
Tuesday, June 25, 2024, 6:30-9:30am
Weather: Mostly sunny
Location: Rock Bottom Ranch, Basalt, CO
Highlights from today’s outing centered around behaviors and nestlings. The red-winged blackbirds provided us with a variety of displays, calls, and songs. A Say’s phoebe was sitting on their nest under the carport roof. The Lewis’s woodpeckers were active around their nesting tree, and we were treated to seeing a nestling poking its head out of the nest cavity awaiting food from its parents. We compared their body structure with the other woodpeckers we saw: flickers, red-naped sapsuckers, and a downy woodpecker. We studied the field marks of two swallow species feeding low over the pond and of the juvenile robins. We even spotted a Kestrel with a mouse in its beak. Join us on Tuesday for Morning Birding at Hallam Lake!
Species List:
Mallard
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Black-chinned Hummingbird
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-naped Sapsucker
Lewis’s Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
American Kestrel
Western Flycatcher
Say’s Phoebe
Western Kingbird
Black-billed Magpie
Common Raven
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
House Wren
European Starling
American Robin
Cedar Waxwing
House Finch
Song Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Brewer’s Blackbird
Yellow Warbler
Black-headed Grosbeak
~ Phebe Meyers, ACES Community Programs Director