Morning Birding at Rock Bottom Ranch | July 24, 2018

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Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 7:00AM – 10:00AM
Weather: Sunny, with wildfire smoke
Location: Rock Bottom Ranch and Rio Grande Trail

Species Identified
Canada Goose Mallard Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove Black-chinned Hummingbird Broad-tailed Hummingbird Rufous Hummingbird Great Blue Heron Red-tailed Hawk Lewis’s Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Northern Flicker American Kestrel Western Wood-Pewee Cordilleran Flycatcher Steller’s Jay Black-billed Magpie American Crow Tree Swallow		Violet-green Swallow Northern Rough-winged Swallow Black-capped Chickadee White-breasted Nuthatch House Wren American Robin Gray Catbird House Finch Green-tailed Towhee Song Sparrow Red-winged Blackbird Brown-headed Cowbird Yellow Warbler Black-headed Grosbeak

Comments:

Newly-fledged young birds were the highlight of today’s Morning Birding outing! We experienced an abundance of birds, barely able to take a few steps down the trail with so much activity to observe. We were able to study Lewis’s Woodpeckers, having lots of opportunities to watch them foraging and preening in four different locations. A Black-headed Grosbeak eating service berries provided us with an excellent opportunity to see its yellow underwing linings, wing bars, and markings on the head. We noted young birds practicing their songs, singing them not quite right yet.  It was exciting to see an abundance of birdlife at Rock Bottom Ranch and along the Rio Grande Trail.  

Today’s mini-lesson addressed how birds respond to wildfire. According to a current article by National Audubon, birds fare relatively well in the face of wildfire as compared to other types of wildlife.  Their mobility allows birds to move away from fire easily, with the exception of nestlings and any other birds that are not flighted. Historically, the benefits of a renewed landscape following regular, non-intense, natural wildfires outweighed immediate losses caused by fire. However, today, with decades of fire suppression and the effects of climate change, the wildfire season is longer and fires are often much more intense. Certain bird species do well on the patchy, post-fire landscape: Dusky Flycatcher, Mountain Bluebird, and certain woodpeckers. It will be interesting for us to observe the recovery of the landscape following the Lake Christine fire, with hopes that renewed vegetation communities flourish and provide high-quality wild foods and cover for the birds and other wildlife.

~ Rebecca Weiss, ACES Bird Guide 

Photo by Dale Armstrong