Northern Flickers

It is amazing how many Northern Flickers are about in the fall in SE Colorado like the flicker in this photo. Some of these may be birds making an altitudinal migration from higher elevation locations for the winter. They are less likely to be birds migrating from northern areas as the Red-shafted form, which are commonly found in most of Colorado, usually over-winter in or near their breeding areas.

Other birds around Canon City today included several flocks of migrating Yellow-rumped Warblers. The ones I am seeing are all Audubon's subspecies. I saw the two Greater White-fronted Geese that have come into the area in the cut corn fields north of the Valco Ponds, a location where they are commonly seen every year.

There was an unusual mini-congregation of Red-tailed Hawks in some cottonwoods on my friend's property just east of Canon City. One flew out of that location then I flushed another that apparently was after a bird (I was drawn there by the calling of a bird). A few minutes later a third Red-tailed Hawk, this one an immature, flew right in to the same place where the second bird flew from. It looked first at my dog then at me, then flew off (it flew in only about 30 feet from my dog and me).
SeEtta