Rifle Gap State Park

 

Met up with Janis and worked with her a bit.  For all the work Janis has done for us this year, we actually just met her for the first time.  She trained on our software at the Denver office, so some of us had met her, but not Judy and Me.  Janis and her husband Brian are staying here at the state park while she does jobs in the Roaring Fork Valley (Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Basalt, and Aspen.  It was fun getting to know her.  We’ll meet up again in November when we both attend the conference in Orlando.

 

Rifle Gap didn’t look like a very birdy place at first, except for the constant drone of hummingbirds exploring every crevice of the coach until we put out the feeders.  The nectar feeder got overwhelmed with hummingbirds; all Black Chinned with the exception of the magnificent amber Rufous Hummingbird flashing himself at us.  The seed feeders got house finches and pine siskins.  A walk in the sage, rabbitbrush, and juniper got vesper sparrows, blue gray gnatcatcher, and black throated gray warbler.  Bluebirds filled the fields.  A gang of fifty pinyon jays blew through the trees.  The lake and inlet got herons, blackbirds, and swallows.  Judy had a Wild Kingdom Moment.  A golden eagle overhead dove on a great blue heron and took it right out of the air.  He ate it on the ground.  There was an immature golden eagle around too.

 

Altogether we got 36 species:

Canada goose

Mallard

Clark’s grebe

Great blue heron

Turkey vulture

Golden eagle

Mourning dove

Common nighthawk

Black chinned hummingbird

Rufous hummingbird

Northern flicker

Western wood pewee

Say’s phoebe

Western scrub jay

Pinyon jay

Black billed magpie

Common raven

Violet green swallow

Northern rough winged swallow

Cliff swallow

Barn swallow

Blue gray gnatcatcher

Western bluebird

Mountain bluebird

American robin

Black throated gray warbler

Green tailed towhee

Chipping sparrow

Vesper sparrow

Red winged blackbird

Western meadowlark

Brewer’s blackbird

Common grackle

House finch

Pine siskin

American goldfinch