Big Cottonwood Canyon

[cldavis at xmission dot com]

We went birding up Big Cottonwood Canyon yesterday.  One of the first things
we encountered was someone's automobile manual along the side of the road
that contained personal information. Upon contacting the owner, it seems he
was hiking up Mount Olympus the day before and someone broke into his car
and stole everything in it. 

Our first good spot of the day was the Townsend's Solitaire flying high
along the cliffs.  We were helped in our ID by a birder from New Mexico who
screeched to a halt along the road when he saw us scanning the sky with
binoculars.  After that we saw and heard Solitaires everywhere.  Just about
any time you rolled down the windows on the way up you could hear Fox
Sparrows, Song Sparrows and Warbling Vireos.  Western Tanagers lit up the
sky as they flew back and forth across the road?we've never seen so many up
that canyon.

At the magical forest at Silver Lake the creepers were creeping?well, more
like running?up the trees.  We heard Ruby-crowned Kinglets all around us
and saw some Red-breasted Nuthatches. Around the lake we saw all the
resident birds and then just before we left the forested area and walked up
the path toward the benches and railed area, we heard a weak red-tail hawk
call from the trees.   We climbed up the hill a little ways and listened
and heard it again.  I thought it had to be a Steller's Jay imitating a
red-tail and that's what it was.  It also did a mean imitation of the sound
a cat makes when it's being taken to the vet.

All in all, a good day of birding.  If anyone would like to see the Fox
Sparrow we cornered for a picture, here's a link:
http://xmission.com/~cldavis/birds150.html#fs

Carol

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