Date: 8/25/25 1:11 pm From: Patrick O'Driscoll <patodrisk...> Subject: Re: [cobirds] Birding with Bad Company: RMA NWR, Adams Co., Aug. 24; and a few thoughts on eBird
Hear, hear, Ted! Great report.
And I second your observation about young Archer's preternatural birding
skills, with which he runs circles around me in our shared Denver City Park
home patch.
Thanks especially for suggestion No. 3 -- except I'd say don't "consider"
adding field notes. Just do it (whether wearing Nikes or not).
To me, few things are sadder in eBird than checklists of species, their
number (or worse, the lazy "X") . . . and nothing else.
It's probably because I'm a retired journalist and so writing comes easily
to me, but still:
The first-draft-of-natural-history value of written comments in eBird
canNOT be overstated.
I try to find something to say on my checklists about as many species
encounters as possible. We all should.
And when birders take 10 seconds to note WHERE in the hotspot they
encountered this bird or that, they're encouraging others to come find and
enjoy the bird(s), too -- whether rare, uncommon, or just a damned fine
example of a year-round resident, an empty nest, a mini-hotspot, weather,
behavior, etc.
Thanks again for a thoroughly entertaining and informative report.
Patrick O'Driscoll
Denver
On Mon, Aug 25, 2025 at 1:33 PM Ted Floyd <tedfloyd73...> wrote:
> Hey, all.
>
> I enjoyed a wonderful day yesterday, Sun., Aug. 24, 2025, at Rocky
> Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, Adams County, with "Bad
> Company": Bill Schmoker, Archer Silverman, and ringleader Peter Burke.
> Peter and Bill and I were supposed to get Archer at 0-dark-30, but we got
> lost deep in the heart of Denver; however, we found Archer eventually, or
> he found us, and we still somehow got to The Arsenal before sunrise, in
> time for a bit of nocturnal migration. At the entrance gate, we heard a
> latish *upland sandpiper,* plus a few sparrows going over, and we saw a
> couple of *great horned owls;* and then it was time to get at the back of
> the long queue of fisherman waiting impatiently to get into The Arsenal
> proper.
>
> The morning started off with lovely, low-lying fog, hazy sunshine, and
> delectably non-Euclidean crepuscular rays:
>
> [image: Little Havana.jpg]
>
> Then the skies quickly clouded over as a cold front came through. One
> little micro hotspot was super-birdy (more on that presently), but other
> than that, the pace of birding was "slow and steady wins the race" the
> whole time we were out there: five *wood ducks,* a *hooded merganser,
> black-chinned* & *broad-tailed hummingbirds, Virginia rail* & *Sora,
> solitary sandpiper, lesser* & *greater yellowlegses, Baird sandpipers,
> Forster tern,* a magnus *ferruginous hawk* terrorizing the black-tailed
> prairie dogs, *Cynomys ludovicianus*, a *willow flycatcher,* a ho-hum 78 *western
> kingbirds,* an unidentified warbling-vireo, *loggerhead shrikes* in
> double digits (okay, *barely* in double digits, we saw 10—but, still,
> that's cool), two small groups of *American bushtits,* four *sage
> thrashers,* a flyover *eastern bluebird,* two *clay-colored sparrows* and
> six *Brewer sparrows,* 20 *lark buntings,* a beautiful *orestera* *orange-crowned
> warbler,* a *black-headed grosbeak,* and a nice showing by *blue
> grosbeaks* and *lazuli buntings.*
>
> I alluded to a micro hotspot. It was where that dinky little canal cuts
> through the New Mexico locusts, *Robinia neomexicana*, and crosses the
> trail down to Big Havana Pond. That stretch is consistently excellent. In
> just a tiny little patch in there, we saw: two black-chinned hummingbirds,
> an unidentified *Selasphorus* hummingbird, *downy* & *hairy woodpeckers,*
> a *western wood-pewee, *a willow flycatcher, American bushtits, a *cheddar
> waxwing,* a *spotted towhee* (uncommon at The Arsenal), a *Bullock
> oriole,* orange-crowned, *Wilson,* and *yellow warblers; common
> yellowthroats;* a black-headed grosbeak; and five blue grosbeaks and four
> lazuli buntings. Dang.
>
> The Forster tern whipping around Lower Derby in the swirling clouds and
> north wind was a treat. Not a rarity or anything, but just such a beautiful
> bird, white as a ghost and with that black "bandit's mask." We all agreed
> that white-tern, the hapless new name for the magnificent fairyterns of
> tropical oceans, would apply just as well to the nonbreeding Forster's
> tern. But I digress...
>
> Oh, and the true highlight, the *pièce de résistance*, of our visit to
> The Arsenal, was a transcendently beatific big sand tiger beetle, C*icindela
> formosa*, on the trail into the Upper Derby woods:
>
> [image: C formosa.jpg]
>
> After The Arsenal proper, we shamelessly tarried in urban Commerce City to
> add ticks to our list (hello, *house sparrow *and collared-dove!) and
> then Archer and I tricked Comandante Burke into driving us down to Fairfax
> Liquors (Bill helpfully inquired whether Archer was dropping off a job
> application...) in Denver. Where we saw the belovèd *Mississippi kites*
> of Park Hill! Two already nearly full-grown juveniles were perched out on a
> snag in the big silver maple, *Acer saccharinum*, catty-corner from
> Fairfax Liquors. One was calling constantly, audible even from our turret
> gun–equipped armored vehicle jeep as we were still on final approach to
> the stakeout, its loud and petulant whistle
> <https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/640796917> out-decibeling all the
> other noises of the city: barking dogs, kids on hoverboards, surround-sound
> construction, and patrons coming and going at the booze shop. Speaking of
> which, Peter got the last laugh in: He emerged from Fairfax Liquors with a
> four-pack of celebratory ice cold ginger ales in 1970s-era green cans, and
> we toasted another year's successful brood of kites, a great day of birding
> at The Arsenal & environs, and the baddest of Bad Company in Colorado or
> anywhere else in the West.
>
> We got Archer back home, about five hours after he'd told his
> longsuffering parents he'd be home. And, once again, the nominally grown-up
> representatives of Colorado Field Ornithologists succeeded in corrupting
> the minds of birding youth everywhere. It's okay, Archer will be doing
> likewise in no time at all, and he's already a better birder than any of
> the rest of us.
>
> ————————————————————————————
>
> That's all I got. In the remote chance that you're still with me, I have a
> few thoughts about how to manage it all, eBird-wise, when birding legendary
> birding hotspots with a great many stops and patches within, as well as
> along the periphery thereof. Basically, the "mother & daughter" problem, as
> we call it. The problem had become essentially unmanageable until eBird
> came out with trip reports, which are brilliant for handling birding
> experiences like our visit yesterday to The Arsenal & environs. Here are a
> few suggestions, if I may:
>
> 1. Have a designated tick-man, as we say. That was Archer. Recent
> enhancements to eBird, centered mostly around tracking *exactly* where
> you are and when you went there (wait till I. C. E. gets their hands on
> this...), really burn down your phone's battery, and we had to recharge
> Archer's phone several times. So keep that in mind. Don't let being the
> tick-man be a thankless task; we plied Archer with oranges, potato chips,
> and the aforementioned ginger ale, and I made him carry my scope only
> *part* of the time.
>
> 2. Make a quick "establishing shot" (scenic/landscape photo) for each
> hotspot visited. This is a superb new feature at eBird. Just take a quick
> photo with your smartphone, upload it under "habitat/soundscape," and then
> designate it as the "featured image." Kudos to the propellerheads at
> Macaulay for making this so easy. I think a featured image of this sort has
> the potential to make eBird even more valuable than it already is. And,
> please, I beg you: horizontal (landscape) photos, not vertical (portrait).
> Look, vertical/portrait is great if you're Leonardo da Vinci or Annie
> Leibovitz, but the rest of us shouldn't be doing it. Ask me what I
> *really* think about Instagram... 😈
>
> 3. Consider adding at least brief comments to each checklist. Don't worry
> about typos, grammar, and syntax. I don't. There's a saying, "Journalism is
> the first rough draft of history," and Kimball Garrett, one of the greatest
> birders of all time, says that "Field notes are the first rough draft of
> natural history." Just write something, anything. Weather...water
> level...phenology... When someone looks at your checklist 50 years from
> now, or, heck, five days from now, those checklist comments are supremely
> valuable.
>
> Here's our trip report from yesterday:
>
> ebird.org/tripreport/405557
>
> Look, it's not perfect. You'll find a typo in probably every one of my
> entries; my cellphone "establishing shots" aren't perfectly straightened
> and otherwise digitally airbrushed; and it's conceivable that Archer missed
> a *rock pigeon* or* barn swallow* or two. (Although it was pretty
> impressive that he attempted 1x1 counts of the rock pigeon flocks going
> over, and endeavored to get "American" barn swallow, subspecies
> *erythrogaster*, on as many individuals as possible.) But it's all there,
> and anybody can figure out basically what we did, where we went, what we
> saw, and what the conditions & access were like.
>
> Good birding to you all, Peace, —Ted Floyd, Lafayette, Boulder Co.
>
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