Shockingly December is ticking off faster than the previous month. In this case, it is a good thing since it puts us closer to warmer weather – Linda and I head south soon after jolly St. Nick squeezes down our chimney. It is getting a bit stressful as another Average Year effort (link here) is also coming to a close. Currently sitting at 337 and Ron has added two since I updated the stats putting him at 299 – just one under our pre-kickoff 300 species goal. You may recall, we both missed it by a feather last year (link here). Carrying on the sub-species theme from my last post, Brad is going to bring us another adventure from his Colorado trip. Unfortunately Brad, no extra partial count credit for sub-species ha.
Take it away Brad…
I’m one that always like to take a new road to see where it goes. However, I’m not always successful and sometimes have to do a fair bit of backtracking. Jan and I had just returned from a whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here). The kids had to work that Monday morning. Jan and I had the entire day to explore the Front Range of the Rockies near Denver. I know, I know, a very big task for only a day.
This is really part two of a trip to Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) in Colorado. We had succeeded in getting to the park before many other visitors. In fact, thus far we had seen ZERO other visitors. After leaving the Mountain Bluebirds behind (link here), I found a wandering, spaghetti-like curved road.
Hit the jump to learn about what was “eyed” at the end of this Colorado adventure.
Obviously, flatlanders would have a bit of a challenge paying attention to the road and road signs with scenery like that in the background. A mile or three, and several Etch-a-Sketch (kids ask your parents about Etch-a-Sketch) hairpin curves later, we found a GGCSP sign that pointed straight up the mountain. The road was not paved; it was only graded dirt. We met two Caterpillar motor graders on the way up the mountain. I was surprised just how good a job they were doing with just dirt for a surface; the road was really very smooth.
As Jan and I wound our way up the mountain, we followed signs for Panorama Point. I mean the name must say it all, right? The higher we drove, the more snow we saw and the smaller the trees became. The roads were clear, but everything else was covered with a couple inches of new snow. It is April in the Rockies after all. The ground approaching Panorama Point was above 9,000 feet of elevation, well above the state average of 6,860 feet. Once we found the 6-slot parking area, we made sure we had the temporary park pass on the dashboard.
I readied the cameras, closed the rear hatch this time, and locked the car doors. Jan was already walking up the trail to the observation area. At the end of the observation platform, we quickly learned where the picnic area got its name.
Obviously, we stopped to soak in the view of the distant snow-covered peaks, and took a few selfies with our smartphones (no, those aren’t part of the story). Even though the picnic area was in the trees, the tree line wasn’t very far above us. As you can see from the photos, there were clumps of snow in the trees. From time to time, a clump would warm ever so slightly and fall through the pine branches. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw movement with many of these clumps falling. But each time I would turn to look, I couldn’t see anything. Something caught my attention, so I walked back to the entrance of the observation area. I saw a little grey and brown lump moving on the ground near the stairs. Raising my camera to my eye, I tried to find the lump in the viewfinder. Nothing. Then on the edge of my vision it moved again. Still nothing. More movement. Aha! I finally caught it.
It looked like a Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) from home. But the color wasn’t quite right. The birds we have at home in Illinois are dark slate on top, and nearly snow white on the bottom with a very crisp line separating the two colors. This one was a bit lighter slate on top and dusky on the bottom with subtle color gradient from top to bottom. It also looked like it had a brown leaf stuck on its back, or a tiny bird cape.
It wasn’t until later that I found out this was, in fact, a Dark-eyed Junco. However, it was no run-of-the-mill Dark-eyed Junco. Instead, it was a Grey-headed variant of the bird that frequents our feeders during the long Illinois winters. (I can hear the Minnesotans protesting right about now, “You think your winters are long . . . “) Dark-eyed Juncos are not a +1 for me, but this variant is, so it’s a +1/3? Grey-headed Juncos look a lot like the Red-backed version, except for the single colored bill on the Grey (Reds have a bi-color bill).
While not a very good photo of this Junco, it does illustrate the “red” patch on its back and shoulders. See why I thought it might be a leaf? Of course, there were a bunch of small twigs and stems on the ground that the Junco preferred to hide behind. I couldn’t reposition easily without scaring it, or getting even more twigs in the way. My camera always seemed to want to focus on the twigs instead of the bird. I was able to catch a few more photos before it flew up to the trees on the other side of the observation platform.
I didn’t know what the photos looked like until we were back in the hotel later that day. They nearly always look perfect on the small LCD on the back of the camera. Exposing a dark bird with a snowy background is difficult. The camera wants to normally underexpose snow, and overexpose a dark object. But place a dark object in the middle of snow and it really doesn’t know what to do. (The same is true with a very light object on a very dark background.) Luckily for me, Lightroom was able to tease out some details and give the photos a bit more balance.
I climbed back up the five steps to the observation deck. The Junco flitted from one tree to another. And then to yet another. I slowly followed it through the icy snow on the deck to another lookout location. I watched it settle on a large chunk of granite and stare at me.
It seemed like it was posing and wanted me to take more photos of its good side. I happily obliged. For about nine photos, then it was gone again. I didn’t see it for the rest of the visit to Panorama Point. But with views of the mountains like the one above, I really didn’t care.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Dark-eyed Junco photos (slate-colored or grey-headed), please visit here.
Credits
Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing. Allyson is still on assignment. Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.
Life Intrigued 