Photo by Joe Lewendowski courtesy of Colorado Division of Wildlife

by Peter G. Walker

In order to put today’s tale in perspective, and to be fair to all concerned, I need to give you quite a bit of background. First of all, those of you who have never visited the little known region of eastern Colorado, you need to appreciate just how rural it is. Discounting Greeley, which is really an eastward extension of the Colorado Front Range, in an area the size of the entire state of Maine, there are only four “cities” that approach 10,000 people in size. The entire region has a phone book about the size of the one we used 30 years ago for the greater Augusta area in Maine. It’s about as rural as it gets. Mayberry RFD with cattle trucks and wheat fields.

About 45 miles northeast of my home town of Fort Morgan (population 10,000) is northeast Colorado’s other major city, Sterling (population also 10,000 if you count all the inmates in the local state prison). Except for yucky tap water, Sterling is a neat and almost always quiet town. After the 911 disaster, Congress, through the Homeland Security Act, made a lot of grant money available to even remote little towns like Sterling. In the years since 911, there have been several incredibly brutal and senseless slaughters in a couple of Colorado schools and at least one large church perpetrated by deranged students and citizens. Sterling’s government, while realistically not overly afraid of international terrorism, certainly has as much reason as any Colorado town to fear terrorism of the domestic sort. Therefore the remote little business and railroad yard community used its federal money to equip and train a SWAT team.

All of the northeastern counties in Colorado are shortgrass prairie. The only “forests” are widely spaced cottonwoods, peachleaf willows and introduced trees such as brown ash and Russian olive that grow along watercourses, few and far between. Colorado has plenty of black bears and mountain lions, but to have any chance at all of seeing  one you’d need to drive about 150 miles west from Sterling. Nevertheless, in every coffee shop and café in every village in this part of the state, you can easily find someone who, if not themselves personally, knows of someone who has seen a bear or a lion or a panther or who-knows-what in an alley or back behind Old Man Bender’s watermelon patch.

One searing hot summer day about 3 years ago, an employee at the Sterling Wal-Mart spotted a large black animal slipping stealthily into the willow and cattail thicket that grows in the bottom of a large intermittent drainage ditch leading from the back parking lot away from the store towards a housing development. She called Sterling P.D. and reported she’d just seen a bear. The Sterling Police Department activated their SWAT team.

During the melee that took place in the next few minutes with officers donning flack vests and military-style helmets and breaking out their AR-15 assault weapons, someone had the sense to call for a game warden. Veteran Wildlife Technician and Officer Mike Etl at the nearby Division of Wildlife shop at Dune Ridge took the call.

Mike arrived behind the Wal-Mart to find a group of officers huddled like musk oxen near the head of the ditch. To a Colorado Game Warden used to working alone with large animals and throngs of well-armed hunters, the SWAT officers, clad in black with abundant firepower and  body armor looked absolutely bizarre. Suppressing the repeated urge to burst out laughing, Mike gathered the very sparse facts available. He walked down into the ditch and immediately spotted a large, deep track with large claws. It was most assuredly canine and not ursine.

Recognizing the track, the game warden explained to the nervous men in black that it is not a crime to be a black bear in Sterling, Colorado or any other Colorado community for that matter. The intrepid wildlife officer then called for calm and told them all to wait while he went in to investigate.

There was a game trail of sorts through the narrow thicket. The ground became wetter as the ditch dropped progressively lower and finally, after a jungle-style stalk of about 200 yards, the warden caught up with his quarry. Sprawled in a green and slimy water hole was a very large, very hot Rottweiler.

Mike commanded the big dog  to come to him and the friendly beast came to heel just as he’d been asked.

“C’mon,” the game warden said. “I want to introduce you to some people.”

The goo-covered beast happily complied.

As Mike and his new friend got closer to the SWAT team, he called out, “Hold your fire! I’m bringing him out.” A few more steps and he could see the Sterling officers gripping their weapons cautiously and all trying to get a look at the black critter following Mike.

“Aw! It’s a big dog. Stand down!”

And that is what happened when the Sterling SWAT Team took on a bear.

USFWS photo by Peter Johnson, 2008

Oh, why does man pursue the smelt?
It has no valuable pelt,
It boasts of no escutcheon royal,
It yields no ivory or oil,
Its life is dull, its death is tame,
a fish as humble as its name.
Yet – take this salmon somewhere else;
And bring me half a dozen smelts!

Ogden Nash, 1902-1971

            I can’t explain it either. But ever since I was a little kid I’ve had a fascination with the smelt. And lots of other Mainers do, too.

            Middle Range Pond, the natural lake at the foot of the hill where I grew up in Poland Spring, Maine had a thriving population of tiny, sardine-sized smelts. They lived in the lake’s depths and were only seen in the early spring around ice-out when they ran up the little tributary brooks late at night to spawn. Men used to stay out all night to go smelting. They would catch the tiny fish with fine mesh dip nets. The limit was 4 quarts per fisherman per night. But, as I soon came to realize, smelts for most Maine outdoorsmen, are simply an excuse to stay out all night and howl at the moon and drink themselves into oblivion.

            When I was seven I got my first bicycle, a 24” Columbia, and shortly after discovered there was gold on the roadsides in the form of returnable bottles: 2¢ for a long-necked beer bottle, 3¢ for a 12-ounce pop bottle, and 5¢ for a quart pop or beer bottle.

            One of my first bicycle trips afield was down the hill to a 2-track woods road that led in to a cove where Schellinger’s Brook emptied into the lake. It was April, 1955 on one of the very first warm days of spring at that high latitude. I don’t remember why I chose that destination but, when I reached the edge of the brook, I knew I’d struck it rich. Every square inch of the rocks and fontinalis moss in the brook from the mouth up to the first falls was coated with tiny yellow-white smelt eggs in testimony of what had taken place the night before. Everywhere on either bank lay returnable beer bottles by the dozen! I was rich!

            It took me awhile to gather up all the good ones and stash them behind a brush pile lest someone else find them and steal them before I could get them all home. In the process I came upon a big dry cell flashlight, the kind with a handle and a red-flashing beacon on the back. Even in the second grade I knew that whoever left that nice light must have been smashed when he staggered back up out of the woods.

            I never really caught the smelt dipping bug. Once in awhile in high school I would go out with a few buddies and try to locate a run. Once I remember walking out on the end of an 8” x 8” cross piece on a logging road bridge. “Be careful of these beams,” I warned my friends. “Some of them may be rot….ten!”

            A second or two later the outer 4 feet of the beam and I both hit the shell ice and water ten feet below. My buddies said the only thing visible in their flashlight beams was my wool cap floating on the surface. I spent the rest of the evening stripped down and wrapped in a car blanket trying to trap the entire output of the car’s heater inside my blanket.

            Angling for smelts was a different story. The smelts in the lake spent most of their time near the bottom even in winter. My older friend at the base of the hill, Ronnie Morrill, had a fishing shack that his dad would put out in the middle of the lake every January. For two months Ronnie and I would fish in 60 feet of water for the occasional lake trout and all the smelts we could catch. To catch a 4-5” smelt at that depth takes a special rig. We used a 10-12” length of spring steel such as an old corset stay anchored to the wall of the shanty above a hole in the floor. To the end was attached a length of fine monofilament line – either 2 or 4 pound test – long enough to reach down to within a foot of the bottom of the lake. On the business end of that line was a small sinker and a #10 or #12 fly-tying hook baited with a tiny sliver of cut up baitfish.

            We usually each fished two smelt lines and set several tip-ups with live shiners or smelts for lake trout in proximity to the shanty. In those days an ice fisherman could have up to five lines.  The object was to watch the tips of the bowed springs closely. When a tiny smelt took the bait far below the spring wiggled slightly. One had to grab the line to set the hook, then haul it in hand over hand. It wasn’t an occupation that would keep a person fed. If we caught enough smelts in ten days afield, for one man to make a meal  I don’t remember when that was. But it was a great way to spend a bitterly cold winter’s day and it sure beat the heck out of Saturday cartoons.

            For some reason the Maine legislature has never looked upon ice fishing at night with favor. Middle Range, like most of the lakes in my county, was closed to fishing after dark. One day Ronnie and I discussed the state of affairs and decided there must be a good reason for it. We figured it must be a conservation measure. Smelts must be much easier to catch at night. Therefore we hatched a plan to test our hypothesis.

            The next weekend we took a small bag of night-fishing supplies out to the shack. As evening came on, we taped black paper across the three, single-pane windows and banked snow thickly around the base of the shack so that no light would be visible from shore. As nightful came on, we turned off the portable AM radio and placed tiny candles just above the smelt springs that gave just enough light to see the movement of the springs.

            Well, darned if it didn’t work spectacularly! Just about dark the springs began to wiggle and we caught smelts one after another about as fast as we could bait our hooks. In a couple of hours we easily caught more smelts than we’d caught collectively in the past 2-3 years! Around 9:30 p.m. we quietly locked up and walked the half mile across the lake to Ronnie’s house making as little noise as possible.

            Among the other ice anglers frequenting the lake in those days was my much older cousin Bobby Walker and his friend Bobby Martin. Bobby had a better-built shanty much closer to the landing on Route 26 than Ronnie’s little tarpaper-covered shack. The week after our successful smelt poaching operation we bragged about our success to the older boys.

            Thus on the following Saturday the two Bobbies came equipped with black paper, masking tape, and candles to give our technique a try. It worked just as well. The two high school seniors had a ball catching smelts through the evening. Perhaps if Bobby Walker’s giggle didn’t carry quite so far on a still winter’s night and perhaps if their shanty was another quarter of a mile off the highway, the game warden would never have become suspicious and walked out to see what was going on.

That’s how, at 9-years-old, I out-poached my cousin Bobbie.

Drawing by Wayne Lewis courtesy of Colorado Division of Wildlife.

by Peter Walker

            Three years ago my then 7-year-old grandson, Jason, introduced me to the recent hit animated movie “Over the Hedge.” One of the funniest scenes takes place in a tract home when the invading small animals are confronted by the woman of the house, armed with a broom.

            In the confusion the skunk turns to one of her compatriots and says, “I’m sorry you have to see this.”

Then she yells out, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

The view pans back away from the house as, “POOM!” a green cloud blows out simultaneously from the windows and doors.

That incident reminds me of a tale often told in the Walker family. My paternal grandfather, Elmer Walker, was a big man for his generation. At 6’ 3” he had a deep booming voice to match his stature.

My grandparents lived in a huge farmhouse in southern Maine that had been in our family since 1840. Typical of the homes of that era, the barn and house were attached by an enclosed shed to make chores possible without going out into the snow.

In more recent times the shed was finished off into a 2-story apartment. That apartment once served as a doctor’s office and at other times was rented to various people, including Nancy and me early in our marriage.

 The particular incident occurred in summer in the 1950s. At that time my Uncle Gerry and Aunt Claire were living in the apartment and saving to buy a house of their own.

Grampa owned a plumbing company. One of the responsibilities of the trade is making house calls at all hours of the night.

On that particular night, Grampa had been out fixing a water pump or unplugging a drain until after midnight. He returned dirty, tired and hungry to a darkened house and yard. The door to the main part of the house was on a low, open porch.

My grandmother had forgotten to leave the porch light on. Without a light Grampa fumbled through his ring of keys without success. As his frustration grew, the cat – or so he thought – squeezed between his ankles and the door.

At that point my temperamental grandfather took out his frustrations on the bothersome animal straddling his feet. Uttering, “Get out of here, cat!” he cuffed the critter off to one side with the side of his work boot.

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Grampa caught the full retaliation of an offended skunk dead center in the sternum.

Those who have never experienced the wrath of a skunk at close range cannot appreciate how it overwhelms all the senses. Every nerve in one’s body fires off in panic. Your hearing; your eyesight; everything is temporarily paralyzed.

In that state of impaired thinking, Grampa headed for safety – sort of. Somewhere in his brain the urge to take shelter inside took over. Since he couldn’t find his key, he headed for the barn.

In the back of the barn, a hallway led to an unlocked door through my aunt and uncle’s apartment and on into the main part of the house. Aunt Claire said she and Gerry were watching TV in the sanctity of their darkened living room when their home was suddenly invaded by a bellowing, wounded beast preceeding an odor most foul.

By now my grandmother had been awakened. She met her howling husband at the door into the main kitchen and blocked his way. Instead she herded him back through Gerry and Claire’s apartment and into the barn from which he came, once again fumigating the already reeking quarters.

Once out in the yard, my 95-pound grandmother took control of the situation. She ordered the big man to strip off his ruined clothing while she connected the garden hose. The bellowing changed pitch but never let up as she directed a hard stream of ice-cold well water onto his naked frame and gradually took the edge off the skunk smell.

This was followed by several scrubbings with her homemade lye soap and still more icy rinses.

Needless to say no one in the house got a full night’s sleep and the after-effects of the event lingered on for weeks to come.

(Photograph courtesy of Colorado Division of Wildlife)

by Peter Walker

            I don’t know whether curiosity actually kills cats, but I do know what sort of trouble curiosity once brought to a red fox.

            A Maine Game Warden buddy of mine named Smally Chandler told me about the incident. Smally worked the Camden-Searsport district on the Maine coast during the early 1970s. In those days there was a great deal of night time deer poaching west of the Penobscot estuary and it kept the district wardens in that region very busy.

            Warden Chandler received a tip from a citizen about night hunters working a remote area in one corner of his district. Checking logging roads by daylight, he found tire tracks, empty rifle casings, and other evidence of possible night hunting in a clover-rich clearing at the far end of a long, one-lane dirt road through boreal spruce-fir forest. 

            There was no satisfactory place to hide a vehicle within sight of the clearing or anywhere along the woods road. Smally decided the only way he was going to catch the poachers was to go in and try to ambush the bad guys on foot.

So one clear October night with a full moon rising in the east, Warden Chandler hiked up the logging road with a pack on his back. The cloudless sky meant the temperature was going to plummet through the night until it was well below freezing by daybreak. He planned to stay reasonably warm on his stake-out. In his pack was a thermos of hot coffee and a tightly rolled sleeping bag.

The road had been used the year before to haul pulp wood from a fir stand that had been logged off. It crossed a long wooded swamp which would have been a problem if the logger had not built the road bed up a couple of feet with dirt from a barrow ditch along each side.

Warden Chandler set up his vigil by encasing himself in the sleeping bag in an inclined position with his feet toward the bottom of the ditch and his head on a “pillow” of grass and clover at the edge of the road. He was situated so that he had a clear view down the road for more than 200 yards in one direction and the clearing where poaching would presumably take place in the other.

Now came hours and hours of waiting. On this particular night the poachers never showed up. The game warden did his best to remain alert to sound, light, and movement along the silvery roadway while hunkering down in his sleeping bag.

Some time after midnight, with the full moon high overhead, Smally became aware of shadowy movement at the far end of the stretch of road that he lay beside. 

It was not human movement. It was a wild animal and not a particularly big one. As it worked its way closer, the warden could see that it was a red fox methodically checking the weeds first on one side of the road, then the other.

Lying absolutely motionless with only his head sticking out of the bag, the wildlife officer probably looked like nothing more than a log or a shapeless mound in the shadows. The crisp air was motionless.

Gradually the industrious little fox drew very close. Chandler hardly dared to breathe. As the fox checked the opposite road shoulder only 20 feet away, it suddenly lifted its ears and keyed on the man’s head. Perhaps it detected a subtle movement or a faint sound. What was this? Something good to eat?

On full alert the fox stealthily crossed the road toward Smally Chandler, moving cautiously on slender black legs. Closer it tiptoed…closer and closer. Chandler held his breath and the fox very nearly touched him on the nose with its muzzle.

At that moment the man blew air into the fox’s face with a sudden whoosh. The lightning reaction of the startled animal was to jump straight up. Warden Chandler said it appeared as if the animal suddenly levitated several feet, reversed direction in midair and disappeared into the brush across the road without ever coming down again!

            One day last summer Ouray noticed the family pack of weiner dogs were excited about something on the back lawn. Going to investigate, he spotted a gray and black object in the grass and it was moving. It was a baby bat. Assuming it had lost its mother, and knowing enough about bats to realize he probably shouldn’t handle it directly, the boy put on some heavy work gloves to capture the little bat and put him in a terrarium. He figured that the baby bat’s mother could access the baby through the open top and the little animal might be at least somewhat protected from cats and other small terrestrial predators.

The mother bat came close, but apparently was unable to maneuver into the terrarium. She got as close as she could and wouldn’t leave the tree branch above her baby.

So the next morning Ouray Ocanas Ouray placed the baby bat on a low branch. The mother bat went to it immediately. The first order of business was to feed the little one who had not eaten for almost 24 hours. The mother bat embraced her offspring affectionately as it suckled and seemed not to mind the proximity of the two humans. Once the babe was satisfied, the adult bat took it up into the foliage and disappeared.

The bats that Ouray Ocanas assisted were hoary bats, a large but little known species widely distributed in the New World, even in Hawaii. Full grown hoary bats are about 5½ inches long and beautifully marked with warm, reddish-brown faces outlined in black and silver-tipped body hair. Their wing membranes are black against flesh-colored limbs.

Hoary bats are migratory. They mate in fall, but females are able to delay implantation of their (usually two) eggs in the womb so as to time birth for mid-summer when large insects (moths, grasshoppers, and beetles) are most abundant. Females usually travel up into mid-latitudes to bear and rear their young while the males travel much further north and segregate from females through the summer.

Only a few hoary bats live in caves alongside other bat species. The majority live solitary lives in trees, either deciduous or coniferous. Daytime roosts are well concealed from above but open beneath to facilitate quick escape.

In Mammals of Colorado (1994. Denver Museum of Natural History), authors James P. Fitzgerald, Carron A. Meaney, and David M. Armstrong state that, until a female hoary bat with young was observed in Greeley, it was thought that this species only migrated through eastern Colorado and did not reside or raise young here.

Ouray Ocanas’ findings and Mandy Colburn’s photography are additional proof that hoary bats are part of the fauna of Colorado’s eastern plains.

Thanks, Mandy and Ouray, for sharing your experience with estesbog.com.

What would you get if you crossed a lark sparrow with a meadowlark? Whatever it might be, it would probably look quite a lot like a dickcissel. Dickcissels were this week’s stars in northeast Colorado. This sparrow-sized bird with a big voice has puzzled taxonomists for years. The species apparently evolved to take advantage of temporary weed patches left in the wake of the enormous herds of wandering bison. As the plains ecosystem was altered by man, dickcissels adapted. They have a strong affinity for alfalfa fields. But they remain more or less nomadic, here one year and totally absent the next five or ten. July, 2009 marked the largest incursion of dickcissels in this part of the Great Plains since at least the 1970s. The males can be found on power lines overlooking alfalfa or shrubby habitats. They have at least two loud songs, both manifestations of “dickcissel” – one buzzy and one clearly whistled.

The week’s nature list is as follows:

Birds:

Canada goose

Wood duck

Gadwall

Mallard

Blue-winged teal

Redhead

Wild turkey, Rio Grande subspecies

Northern bobwhite

Pied-billed grebe

American white pelican

Double-crested cormorant

American bittern

Great blue heron

Turkey vulture

Mississippi kite

Swainson’s hawk

Red-tailed hawk

Ferruginous hawk

Northern harrier

American kestrel

American coot

Killdeer

Greater yellowlegs

Spotted sandpiper

Baird’s sandpiper

Wilson’s snipe

Ring-billed gull

Rock pigeon

Eurasian collared-dove

Mourning dove

Barn owl

Burrowing owl

Common nighthawk

Chimney swift

Belted kingfisher

Red-headed woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

Northern flicker

Western wood-pewee

Western kingbird

Eastern kingbird

Say’s phoebe

Loggerhead shrike

Warbling vireo

Blue jay

Bank swallow

Northern rough-winged swallow

Cliff swallow

Barn swallow

Black-capped chickadee

House wren

American robin

Northern mockingbird

Brown thrasher

European starling

Yellow warbler

Common yellowthroat

Spotted towhee

Cassin’s sparrow

Brewer’s sparrow

Lark sparrow

Lark bunting

Grasshopper sparrow

Blue grosbeak

Dickcissel

Red-winged blackbird

Yellow-headed blackbird

Western meadowlark

Common grackle

Great-tailed grackle

Brown-headed cowbird

Bullock’s oriole

House finch

American goldfinch

House sparrow

Mammals:

Eastern cottontail

Fox squirrel

Pronghorn

Whitetail deer

Herptiles:

Bullfrog

Lesser earless lizard

Northern leopard frog

Plains blackhead snake

Western rattlesnake

Woodhouse’s toad

I returned from two weeks in soggy Maine to find that things are still as wet here on the prairie as they have been since April. The plains are as green and lush as they have ever been in July in my 25 years here. A few fall migrants (sage thrasher, solitary sandpiper, greater yellowlegs) and post-breeding dispersal species (snowy egret) are beginning to show up. A trip to Poudre River State Fish Hatchery on a diagnostics call gave me a few mountain species to spice up my week list. My best bird this week was an adult Mississippi kite here in Fort Morgan. I’ve seen them here fairly consistently since the early 1990s and I suspect the species is trying to expand northwestward. I’ve only seen a nest here in Morgan County once in a huge cottonwood near the train station.

Birds:

Canada goose

Mallard

Redhead

Cinnamon teal

Green-winged teal

Pied-billed grebe

American white pelican

Double-crested cormorant

American bittern

Great blue heron

Snowy egret

Turkey vulture

Mississippi kite

Swainson’s hawk

Red-tailed hawk

Ferruginous hawk

Northern harrier

American kestrel

American coot

Killdeer

Solitary sandpiper

Greater yellowlegs

Wilson’s snipe

Ring-billed gull

Rock pigeon

Eurasian collared-dove

Mourning dove

Common nighthawk

Chimney swift

Broad-tailed hummingbird

Belted kingfisher

Red-headed woodpecker

Northern flicker

Cordilleran flycatcher

Say’s phoebe

Western kingbird

Eastern kingbird

Loggerhead shrike

Blue jay

Black-billed magpie

American crow

Common raven

Horned lark

Tree swallow

Northern rough-winged swallow

Bank swallow

Cliff swallow

Barn swallow

Mountain chickadee

American robin

Northern mockingbird

Sage thrasher

European starling

Cedar waxwing

Yellow warbler

Common yellowthroat

Brewer’s sparrow

Lark sparrow

Lark bunting

Grasshopper sparrow

Red-winged blackbird

Yellow-headed blackbird

Western meadowlark

Brewer’s blackbird

Common grackle

Brown-headed cowbird

Bullock’s oriole

House finch

American goldfinch

House sparrow

Mammals:

Black-tailed jackrabbit

Black-tailed prairie dog

Eastern cottontail

Golden-mantled ground squirrel

Pronghorn

Spotted ground squirrel

Wyoming ground squirrel

Mother Nature was friendlier during my second week, giving me two full days of sunshine and a chance to do a little serious birding with my long-time mentor and friend, Don Mairs. We spent one of those days in the central Kennebec River Valley and the second in Sunkhaze Meadow National Wildlife Refuge. Between the two days we checked out both boreal and eastern deciduous habitats, lakes, marshes, rivers, and hayfields. One striking contrast between Maine’s wet northern habitats and high plains riparian woodland is the huge variety of nesting wood warblers. All warblers observed were in adult spring plumage, so the young were still in the nests at that time. Don’s excellent field speakers and I-Pod served us well in calling soras into camera range and pulling some of the more shy species into the open.

Birds:

Canada goose

Mallard

Wild turkey

Common loon

Pied-billed grebe

Double-crested cormorant

Great blue heron

Turkey vulture

Osprey

Bald eagle

Broad-winged hawk

Red-tailed hawk

American kestrel

Sora

Killdeer

Spotted sandpiper

Ring-billed gull

Black tern

Rock pigeon

Mourning dove

Chimney swift

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Belted kingfisher

Yellow-bellied sapsucker

Downy woodpecker

Hairy woodpecker

Northern flicker

Olive-sided flycatcher

Yellow-bellied flycatcher L

Alder flycatcher

Eastern phoebe

Great crested flycatcher

Eastern kingbird

Blue-headed vireo

Warbling vireo

Red-eyed vireo

Blue jay

American crow

Common raven

Purple martin

Tree swallow

Bank swallow

Cliff swallow

Barn swallow

Black-capped chickadee

Red-breasted nuthatch

White-breasted nuthatch

Eastern bluebird

Veery

Hermit thrush

American robin

Gray catbird

Northern mockingbird

Brown thrasher

European starling

Cedar waxwing

Nashville warbler

Northern parula

Chestnut-sided warbler

Yellow warbler

Magnolia warbler

Yellow-rumped warbler, myrtle race

Black-throated blue warbler

Black-throated green warbler

Pine warbler

Palm warbler, yellow race

Bay-breasted warbler

Blackpoll warbler

Black-and-white warbler

American redstart

Ovenbird

Common yellowthroat

Scarlet tanager

Chipping sparrow

Field sparrow

Savannah sparrow

Song sparrow

Swamp sparrow

Dark-eyed junco, slate-colored race

Northern cardinal

Rose-breasted grosbeak

Bobolink

Red-winged blackbird

Eastern meadowlark

Common grackle

Brown-headed cowbird

Baltimore oriole

Purple finch

American goldfinch

House sparrow

Mammals:

Beaver

Eastern chipmunk

Gray squirrel

House mouse

Red fox

Red squirrel

Whitetail deer

Herptiles:

American toad

Bullfrog

Common garter snake

Green frog

Wood frog

Farmington, Maine.  In the week since I arrived we’ve only seen sunshine twice, and then for only 2-3 hours at a time! Consequently I’ve only taken my camera out of its case a few times. Despite my inability to do any long-term birding, I’ve picked up a lot of species as incidentals or on short forays here in Farmington around my brother Tom’s place and at my brother David’s camp in the Rangeley country.

I bought a Maine nonresident fishing license and managed to go trolling on Beaver Mountain Pond in drizzle on two occasions. It was my first time sport fishing in years. I caught 8 landlocked Atlantic salmon and one brook trout, none of which were legal minimum length – but lots of fun just the same.

Following is my list for June 28 through July 3, 2009:

Birds

Canada goose

Common merganser

Common loon

Great blue heron

Turkey vulture

Osprey

Sharp-shinned hawk

Broad-winged hawk

American kestrel

Spotted sandpiper

Ring-billed gull

Mourning dove

Chimney swift

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Belted kingfisher

Northern flicker

Eastern phoebe

Eastern kingbird

Warbling vireo

Red-eyed vireo

Blue jay

American crow

Common raven

Tree swallow

Barn swallow

Black-capped chickadee

Red-breasted nuthatch

House wren

Eastern bluebird

American robin

Gray catbird

Brown thrasher

European starling

Cedar waxwing

Northern parula

Chestnut-sided warbler

Black-throated green warbler

Blackburnian warbler

Bay-breasted warbler

American redstart

Ovenbird

Common yellowthroat

Scarlet tanager

Chipping sparrow

Song sparrow

Dark-eyed junco, slate-colored race

Indigo bunting

Red-winged blackbird

Common grackle

Baltimore oriole

House finch

American goldfinch

Pine siskin

House sparrow

Mammals

Eastern chipmunk

Gray squirrel

Moose

Herptiles

American toad

Green frog

Common garter snake

I began the week in Morgan County, Colorado. Now I am in Farmington, Maine some 2,500 miles to the northeast. I arrived here on Friday afternoon and it has hardly stopped raining ever since. On Saturday the sun came out for 3-4 hours in the afternoon and I got out and hiked through mature mixed forest long enough to pick up the songs and a few sightings of some old friends. I’ll be here two more weeks and hope to get out and do some serious birding if the weather ever breaks.

COLORADO LIST

Canada goose

Mallard

Ring-necked pheasant

American white pelican

Double-crested cormorant

Turkey vulture

Swainson’s hawk

Red-tailed hawk

American kestrel

American coot

Killdeer

Rock pigeon

Eurasian collared-dove

Mourning dove

Burrowing owl

Chimney swift

Western kingbird

Eastern kingbird

Loggerhead shrike

Blue jay

Black-billed magpie

Horned lark

Northern rough-winged swallow

Bank swallow

Cliff swallow

Barn swallow

House wren

American robin

Northern mockingbird

Brown thrasher

European starling

Cedar waxwing

Yellow warbler

Common yellowthroat

Cassin’s sparrow

Lark sparrow

Lark bunting

Red-winged blackbird

Yellow-headed blackbird

Western meadowlark

Common grackle

Brown-headed cowbird

Bullock’s oriole

House finch

House sparrow

Mammals:

Black-tailed prairie dog

Eastern cottontail

Fox squirrel

Herptiles:

Woodhouse’s toad

Lesser earless lizard

MAINE LIST

Wood duck

Common loon

Green heron

Turkey vulture

Bald eagle

Killdeer

Ring-billed gull

Rock pigeon

Mourning dove

Great horned owl

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Pileated woodpecker

Eastern phoebe

Great crested flycatcher

Blue-headed vireo

Red-eyed vireo

Blue jay

American crow

Common raven

Black-capped chickadee

Red-breasted nuthatch

House wren

Veery

Hermit thrush

American robin

Gray catbird

Brown thrasher

European starling

Cedar waxwing

Black-throated green warbler

American redstart

Ovenbird

Common yellowthroat

Chipping sparrow

Dark-eyed junco, slate-colored race

Northern cardinal

Indigo bunting

Red-winged blackbird

Common grackle

Brown-headed cowbird

House finch

Purple finch

American goldfinch

Pine siskin

House sparrow

Mammals:

Eastern chipmunk

Gray squirrel

Red squirrel

Herptiles:

American toad

Bullfrog