I should have left my over-confidence back in Chicago. But I took it with me into the high Rockies.
I figured I’d know the birds there. Wouldn’t need a field guide. Not even binoculars, although I picked up a cheap pair before heading into the mountains.
I’m sitting on rocks jutting through an opening in the forest about 9,000 feet up. The snow-capped continental divide is in the distance.
The sun is strong, and so is the smell of pine.
I’m all eyes for the birds, as usual, but I’d have liked to see a mountain lion or black bear. Signs posted on the trail said to watch for them.
I did see Ravens, a Western Tanager and a Red-naped Sapsucker. Then I saw…what the hell were they? Towhees?
No. But they were towhee-like. Similar shape, and they liked being on the ground. Still, I knew they weren’t towhees.
Gray, with a patch of rusty red on their upper backs, ending just below their heads. Cool-looking birds, landing and taking off in small flocks.
You probably know what they were. But I had to search out an old bird book in a ranger’s cabin down the trail.
They were a regional variation of the Dark-eyed Junco, a complex group of birds with several subspecies.
This Colorado subspecies is called the “Gray-headed Junco.”
The illustration nailed it. And the text said that these juncos are found in the high pine forests of the Rockies.
That’s where I was. That’s where they were.
There was that cool click you feel when information in a book matches information in the real world.
Smartass pals of mine might be tempted to say: hey, two kinds of gray-headed birds on the same mountain.
In spite of what lying cameras say, the description only works for the juncos. At least, that’s the way I see it.
As deer who only cross highways at designated “Deer Crossings” how cooperative of the gray-headed Juncos to only appear where the bird books indicate they will.
I am frantically searching my avian tomes and birding websites now in a desperate attempt to identify the “Other Gray Head” in the Rockies.
Ah yes, here he is at http://twofistedbirdwatcher.com/?page_id=3242
Seeing that Gray-headed Junco brings a tear to my eyes. For it was thirty years ago (and longer) that we had six different juncos. My list runneth over.
Except for the yellow-eyed, which they kept as a full species, all the remaining five were “lumped” that is, they were all made into one species, the Dark-eyed Juncos. It’s not easy losing four “friends” so quickly. I never even had a chance to say good bye…and then they were gone.
It would be a few more years before a number of “splits” help ease the pain of having lost those four.