Such-n-Such Bird Blog: Indian Peaks Winter Count

On the 16th of January, we participated in the Indian Peaks winter bird count!!! This winter's participants were Bill Kaempfer, Todd Deininger, Gary Matthews, Marcel and myself. We split up into two groups . . . Todd, Marcel, and me in one, and Bill and Gary in the other. Our group first stopped in Ward and checked out some bird feeders and saw Steller's Jays, Mountain Chickadees, and Dark-eyed Juncos. We next winded up a mountain and stopped at the Brainard Lake trailhead where we hiked around and found two Gray Jays at the trailhead hoping for handouts. After that we walked around Spring Gulch and drove around on some roads looking for nuthatches, crossbills, etc. We were successful in finding Pygmy Nuthatches, an American Robin, a Townsend's Solitaire, and one Red Crossbill. After joining with the other group we drove to the Gold Lake Resort and saw several juncos and a Gray Abert's Squirrel. The other group said that they saw Pine and Evening Grosbeaks in Ward at one of the bird feeders so we returned in hopes of seeing them. We saw the Pine Grosbeaks and only one Evening Grosbeak. We also saw Red Crossbills and a couple Red-breasted Nuthatches. We decided to go to Allenspark to see if we could find rosy-finches. On the way, we saw a Rough-legged Hawk flying over the road, a Belted Kingfisher on a power line, and Clark's Nutcracker on the hillside. When we got to Allenspark, we saw a male and a female Pine Grosbeak along with Mountain Chickadees, Steller's Jays, Black-billed Magpies, a Common Raven, a White-breasted Nuthatch, a Hairy Woodpecker, and a Northern Shrike, but no rosies today.