Category: Birds

Exploring East Lake 3 Park and Nature Preserve in Thornton, Colorado

Our visit to Colorado to see Tyson and his family was a little more chaotic than in past years because both Sidney and Zoe are working during the summer to make money for college. In essence, it meant that we were seldom together at the same time.  What wasn’t abnormal, though, was my intent to walk every day to become accustomed to the high altitude.  Luckily, there is East Lake 3 Park and Nature Preserve in Thornton just a few miles away from their home where Leslie and I walked on our second day in Broomfield.

The Nature Preserve is surrounded by homes and, for the most part, the birds we see there are the birds we often see, like this Red-Shafted Flicker that greeted us a few yards from the entrance,


this Red-Winged Blackbird, 


this Kestrel, 


or this Long-Tailed Grackle. 


The one bird I seldom see, particularly this year, is the American Avocet.  


When we were here last year we saw a mother with chicks, but we didn’t see any chicks this year, just two Avocets that appeared to be heading toward each other but walked right past each other as if they were only interested in where there next meal was coming from.


This time the only babies we saw were Prairie Dog pups.


In past years, this three-mile,  nearly flat walk has seemed relatively easy, but this time, despite numerous stops to get pictures, both Leslie and I struggled in the last quarter mile. Thank goodness we were distracted from our tiredness by the beauty we both find here.

Knowing the Tides is Vital for Birdwatching


I took so many photos at Ocean Shores and stopped to have Sushi that we ended up being late getting to Bottle Beach on the other side of the harbor.  Ideally, I should have been there at least an hour before high tide, but it was almost a full tide when I arrived.  Despite that, we were greeted at the beach by the same birds we had seen at Ocean Shores, a Semipalmated Plover and a Western Sandpiper.


We saw a lot more of those.  In fact the only shore birds we saw at Bottle Beach that we hadn’t seen at Ocean Shores were Dunlin. 


My favorite moment at Bottle Beach actually came when most of the birds had stopped feeding and were resting, huddled in along line behind the larger Dunlin to get out of the wind.


I was disappointed with myself that I had miscalculated the high tide, but it was hard to be too disappointed when we ended the day with some nice shots of the Brown Pelicans


flying overhead on the Westport Jetty.   


Of course, I also consoled myself with ten dollars of chocolates from the candy store in Westport to eat on the way home.  Sushi should always be followed by chocolates.  

Finally, an American Avocet

Although it was fun to see the deep pond that you can’t visit most of the year, my favorite part of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge is still the winter auto tour, even after thousands of geese have left the refuge. The first few times I visited the refuge, I thought that the main ponds were lakes, but over the years seeing the ponds when they’re drained reveal that they’re more like a wetlands than a lake.  That makes them good habitat for long-legged wading birds, and those are some of my favorite birds.

Through the camera lens, White-faced Ibis appear to be large birds with really long legs and the water they’re wading in seems deeper than it really is,


but when you see an Ibis next to a duck, though, you realize that they’re legs really aren’t that long and that’s why the frequent wetlands.


  Wetlands are also an ideal place to see Egrets, like this Great Egret

even if it is not actually wading.

Most of all, though, American Avocets also favor these wetlands, and Avocets are my favorite long-legged wading birds.


So, even though we only saw four Avocets the whole day, seeing our first Avocets of the season still made my day.

And a Roadrunner, too

Alice seemed almost as excited about our seeing new birds as we were seeing them ourselves.  On one of the first days we were there, she yelled “Roadrunner”and told us a Roadrunner had run through the backyard and was in the street in front of the house. I quickly grabbed my camera and captured a few shots

as it walked down the street before flying away. The lighting was terrible and all I could manage was a butt-shot, but I was still thrilled to see one.  

It would have been “Lifer” “I hadn’t already seen several of them when I was stationed at Fort Irwin in the Mojave desert several lifetimes ago I still consider it a Lifer, though, because I definitely wasn’t into bird watching when I was in my twenties and in the Army.

I was disappointed with the quality of the shots, though, and kept looking for it to return.  It did on one of our last days there, and it posed long enough for me to capture over 50 shots of it.  

I almost missed seeing it at first because it blended in with the background remarkably well.

I feared I would scare it, but it was remarkably indifferent to me.  It was easy to get some great closeups.

In fact, the hardest part of getting a picture was keeping it in the frame, particularly that long tail,

except when it paused to stare back at me.

The best shots came when it jumped up on the wall.  This would have been my favorite pose

if I had managed to fit the tail into the shot. At moments like this, I remember how valuable a zoom lens can be.  

In the end, I think this is my favorite shot, though, because I prefer the way it is framed.

Unfortunately, my photos can’t recreate the pure elation I felt the short time I spent in the presence of this magnificent bird.