Colorado: Loveland Pass to Denver

Just had today to find some feeders around the Silverthorne/Dillon area and then go up to Loveland Pass to find White-tailed Ptarmigan. Well, it took a bit of driving around but we eventually found some feeders - and there were loads of birds. I was immediately entranced by up to 10 Pine Grosbeaks sat around the garden....

Pine Grosbeak

And there was also Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, Mountain Chickadee, Red Crossbill, Oregon and Pink-sided Juncos, and several Pygmy Nuthatches. All of a sudden a flurry of wings proved to be a large flock of Brown-capped Rosy-Finches. In excess of 200 birds were present, and we also managed to pick out a couple of Grey-crowned Rosy-Finches as well. 

A distant Grey-crowned Rosy-Finch

I tried a bit more phones coping when this Brown-capped Rosy-Finch flew down to one of the feeders....

Then we headed up to Loveland Pass at just under 12,000 feet where the scenery was awesome.

Loveland Pass at almost 12,000 feet

Well we didn't find any ptarmigans.... It's Sunday and it seemed everyone was up here skiing or snowboarding today. But we'll be back with my group later so I wasn't too disconcerted. 

So we headed back to Denver stopping along the way to see a Woodhouse's Scrub Jay, a few White-throated Swifts and Mountain Chickadee.

Mountain Chickadee

Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay

Then we drove out into the prairies where we saw lots of Western Meadowlarks and Horned Larks.

Horned Lark

There were also lots of raptors with numerous Red-tailed Hawks showing a huge variety of plumages, plus we picked up a Krider's Hawk, Swainson's Hawk, Northern Harrier and a pair of distant Ferruginous Hawks.

Krider's Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Swainson's Hawk