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SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS 2006

2006 Young Birders Conference, Fort Collins, CO

30 June - 5 July 2006

By Micah Malueg

My brother, Josiah, and I arrived by car at the University Inn around 2:30 p.m. the first day of the 2006 Young Birders Conference. We got checked into our rooms then waited for the other participants to arrive. After we had been introduced to the 13 other young birders and the leaders, a few of us walked around the campus across from the hotel to see what birds we could find. The agitated calls of several American Crows led us to a tall group of pine and cottonwood trees where we found a young Great-horned Owl being mobbed. Later, after a sparrow workshop by Jim Rising, we returned with the whole group and got excellent views of the owl through scopes. When we got back we all piled into two vans and set out to look for Common Poor-Wills. Upon arriving at our destination several Poor-Wills and Spotted Towhees were singing in the hills around us. One of the leaders called in a Poor-Will and it flew to the top of a bush, called, then flew out of sight over a nearby ridge.

I woke up at 4:30 am the second day and went to the lobby to eat breakfast. Today we were going to Pawnee National Grasslands. On the way we stopped on a road just off the highway, and here we got good looks at Burrowing Owls and I got my life Mountain Plover. It was around 6:20 when we arrived at Crow Valley Campground on the Pawnee. When we got out of the vans the leaders got their scopes on a Common Nighthawk resting in a tree and we got great looks at it. A few of the other birds we saw while walking around Crow Valley were: Brown Thrashers, Blue Jays, Orchard Orioles, Bullock's Oriole at its nest, Lark Sparrow, Lark Bunting, Yellow Warbler, and a Loggerhead Shrike family. We also observed Western Kingbirds trying to protect their nest from a huge snake that was eating their nestlings. Unfortunately, the snake won in the end. After Crow Valley we went to a part of the Pawnee that was pure grassland where you could see for miles in any direction. I got great looks at a Golden Eagle on a windmill and my life McCown's Longspur, and not so great looks at a Ferruginous Hawk soaring in the distance and my life Chestnut-collared Longspur. After going back to Crow Valley for lunch we drove to our last destination for the day close to 1:30 p.m.; the Pawnee Buttes. A Prairie Falcon was spotted flying over the buttes right before it dropped behind them so we decided to hike down to the buttes. Only half of our group saw the falcon again. However we saw some other cool birds down there including: singing Rock Wrens, another family of shrikes, and a Say's Phoebe. When we got back to the hotel, Michael O'Brien did a workshop called "Techniques of Field Observation" that was very helpful and well done.

The third day we departed at 3:00 a.m. The first stop was on Cameron Pass, where we heard singing Hermit Thrushs and Yellow-rumped Warblers. The next stop was just a little farther down the road. Pine Grosbeaks, Wilson's Warblers, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, White-crowned Sparrow, and Lincoln's Sparrows were all singing. Cassin's Finches and Pine Siskins were calling from the tops of the trees around us. Someone thought they had heard the drumming of a Three-toed Woodpecker but they weren't sure. A little while later, my life Three-toed Woodpecker flew to a stone post about a foot from the ground, and everyone got great looks at it through the scopes before it flew out of sight. A female Moose walked across the road and let us look at it for a while before we left.

By the time we got to Arapaho NWR we had already seen: Mountain Bluebirds, Sage Thrashers, Yellow Warbler, Green-tailed Towhee, Dusky Flycatcher, Double-crested Cormorant, Brewer's Sparrow, American Wigeon, Cliff Swallow, Red-tailed Hawk, Vesper Sparrow, California Gull, Golden Eagle, good views of a Prairie Falcon, etc. The first pond we stopped at in Arapaho yielded birds like: Cinnamon Teal, Blue-winged Teal, Lesser Scaup, American Coot, Pied-billed Grebe, Gadwall, Canvasback, Killdeer, American Avocet, Wilson's Phalarope, Ruddy Duck, Northern Pintail, and Mallard. A Franklin's Gull was flying in the distance over another pond. Some of the other birds we saw in and around Arapaho were: Western Willet, Eared Grebe, Northern Shoveler, Wilson's Snipe, Greater-sage Grouse (a lifer for me), Swainson,s Hawk, Forster's Tern, Black Tern, and an adult Sora with three chicks. The other highlight for the day was a Badger digging right on the side of the road. On the way back we stopped at a gift shop visitor center place and one van's leaders got a badger for its mascot and the other van got a Raven. There was a hummingbird feeder outside the gift shop with one Rufous and lots of Broad-tailed Hummingbirds coming to it. A few of the other young birders and I got the Broad-tails to land on our fingers while they drank, which was really awesome. Also outside the visitor center there were Red Crossbills, Cassin's Finches, Violet-Green Swallows, and a Fox Sparrow.

On the fourth day we woke up at 4:30 am for the trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. On the way there we stopped along a river, and I spotted an American Dipper fly down to the river bank to deposit food into the mouth of a hungry fledgling. When we got to Rocky Mountain National Park we hiked a trail coming off Medicine Bow Curve trying to find ptarmigan. We didn't find them here but we did see: American Pipit, Horned Lark, Mountain Bluebird, and a Yellow-headed Blackbird (a strange bird for alpine tundra)! After this we made a few stops to scan for ptarmigan but didn't find them until we stopped by rock cut and hiked about a half mile up the trail. Almost the whole group had passed the spot were they were when Bill Schmoker spotted the pair of White-tailed Ptarmigan. We stayed there for maybe an hour watching these awesome birds which were lifers for most of the group including me. After lunch we birded in riparian, pine, and aspen habitat right around the picnic area. Some of the more interesting species here were Red-naped Sapsucker, Warbling Vireo, Steller's Jay, Green-tailed Towhee, Western Tanager, Pygmy and White-breasted Nuthatch, and Cordilleran and Hammond's Flycatchers, which we were watching right before the rain started pouring down. When all the soaked birders were in the van we set off to look for Williamson's Sapsuckers. Only part of our group saw a male fly over, but the walk we took in the rain was well worth it because we saw a female Dusky Grouse with her three chicks only about ten feet away from us. After a couple minutes she sat under a bush right by the path and her chicks crawled under her. We continued up the path and saw a male McGillivray's Warbler. When we got back to hotel Louise Zemaitis did a workshop on "Birding from a Naturalist's Point of View", in which she mainly shared from her own outdoor experiences, encouraging us to look at the whole environment and not just the birds.

Day five was spent in the Boulder area. When we got out of the van we were introduced to Ted Floyd (editor of Birding magazine) who would be birding with us for the rest of the day. Then we got our gear and set off up the road to the Gregory Canyon trail. The songs of: Yellow-breasted Chats, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Lesser Goldfinches, Lazuli Bunting, Green-tailed Towhee, Virginia Warbler, Western Wood-Pewee, Western Tanager, and Canyon Wrens accompanied us through the rest of the hike. White-throated Swifts and Violet-green Swallows flew high overhead, a Cooper's Hawk glided low over the tree line and then disappeared behind a distant ridge, and a Broad-tailed Hummingbird sat on a dead twig at the top of a tree then zoomed off. The next stop was Walden Ponds where we saw: one Green Heron, Canada Geese, Redhead, Mallard, Double-crested Cormorant, White Pelican, Song Sparrow, Greater Yellowlegs, Great-blue Heron, Spotted Sandpiper, American Coot, a Great Egret flying over, and all four Swallows that could be seen here. At lunch Bill Schmoker did a talk on digi-scoping then when we got back to the hotel Steve Howell did an excellent workshop on molt, which explained what molt was, molt cycles, and how to age and even identify birds by their molt.

The last day of the conference came too soon, but we did get to sleep in until 5:00 a.m. At about 6:00 a.m. we left the hotel to go birding and the first location we birded was grassland where we saw Cassin's and Grasshopper Sparrows (both lifers for me). The last place we went had a pond and a river alongside it (Watson Lake and the Cache la Poudre River). We walked along a path next to the river and found birds like chickadees, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Kingbird, Canyon Wren, Golden Eagle, and two young Barn Owls in a cave in the side of a cliff on the other side of the river. Canada Geese and Mallards were floating on the pond and around twenty Great-blue Herons were standing on an island that had a vertical bank that Cliff Swallows were nesting on. Back at the vans we said our good-byes to the group that was leaving for the airport earlier and drove back to the hotel. Right after everyone else had left our Grandparents came and picked us up to take us back to their house in Denver.

For me the 2006 Young Birders Conference was an awesome opportunity to share what little knowledge I have and to learn from people that know a lot more than I do. I also met a lot of cool people and most importantly I got to watch and study some amazing birds (of which I got 9 lifers) and just enjoy God's wonderful creation.

These young birders attended the camps/events they report on with the help of ABA scholarships.