Fall Migration Birding at Marolt Open Space 9/23/21

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Thursday, September 23, 2021, 8am-11am
Weather: Sunny
Location: Marolt Open Space

A red-tailed hawk hunting from scattered cottonwood trees in the grassy expanse west of the gravel access road was our first bird of the day as we explored the habitats of the Marolt Open Space. We watched as the hawk flew to the ground and came up with a small rodent in its talons. At edges of shrubs and grasses, sparrows fed on seeds and insects on the ground, and in the cottonwood and aspen stands, we saw a sapsucker and a flicker. The community garden was filled with birds, and spending a chunk of time there, we observed vesper, white-crowned, song, and Lincoln’s sparrows, green-tailed towhees, American and lesser goldfinches, house finches, orange-crowned warblers, and a couple late-lingering broad-tailed hummingbirds. To our great delight, a sora lurking in the vegetation at the western pond gave us a couple of good views. Moving through the scattered serviceberry and oak shrubs to the east, we encountered many chickadees and robins, and in the riparian cottonwoods along Castle Creek we saw more chickadees, robins and woodpeckers. The Marolt Open Space property offers diverse habitats that are valuable to birds during migration, and the community garden with its water and abundant insects and seeds, surrounded by a buffer of native shrubs, is particularly important to birds throughout the migration and breeding seasons. Join us next Tuesday for morning birding at Rock Bottom Ranch!

Species List: 

Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Sora
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-naped Sapsucker
Northern Flicker
Steller’s Jay
Black-billed Magpie
Black-capped Chickadee
Mountain Chickadee
American Robin
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Green-tailed Towhee
Vesper Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln’s Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Orange-crowned Warbler

~ Rebecca Weiss, ACES Bird Guide

Photo of Vesper Sparrow by Ryan Moehring, USFWS