Spring migrants in Canon City area

Boy, birding has been great in the past week in the Canon City area. Yellow-rumped Warblers are coming through by the dozens. In the Arkansas River basin, we get substantial numbers of Myrtle in addition to Audubon's subgroup. Today I led a field trip for the Arkansas Valley Audubon Society and Aiken Audubon and we saw literally hundreds of Yellow-rumps.

Today's trip netted a few rarities including a Tennesse Warbler and a probable Dusky Flycatcher (it didn't make sufficient diagnostic calls to confirm the id but it had a long whitish supercilium, a little yellow wash on its underparts and a short primary projection) on the west section of the Canon City Riverwalk. In the same area we saw a pair of Eastern Phoebes I found a few days ago, a first of the year male Lazuli Bunting, a Say's Phoebe, Chipping Sparrows, House Wrens, and an Orange-crowned Warbler.

Also on today's field trip we saw a pair of Black Phoebes on private property that are repairing a nest used by this species in past years, a Spotted Sandpiper, a late female Common Goldeneye, 5 Western Grebes, 2 Ruddy Ducks, 2 late Hooded Mergansers, a probable Black-chinned Humminbird, several Blue-winged Teal, 2 Cinnamon Teal and a flock of pink-tinged Franklins Gulls. We also heard a Lesser Yellolegs.

Birds missed today but that I have seen in the past few days are up to 3 Snowy Egrets, and a very unusual for this area Western Sandpiper. And there has been a flock of up to 100 Franklin's Gulls plus up to 6-8 Ring-billed Gulls in the area.

SeEtta