Date: 8/25/25 12:34 pm From: Ted Floyd <tedfloyd73...> Subject: [cobirds] Birding with Bad Company: RMA NWR, Adams Co., Aug. 24; and a few thoughts on eBird
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.
--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To post to this group, send email to <cobirds...>
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate.
* Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/membership/ ---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+<unsubscribe...>
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAGk944f91p%<2B6UKiAOrEvnMzR7GkG0nfOr5XQcUKKQYb4eKat8Q...>
