Report from Second Annual Bird Hop

Thirteen people gathered at Coal Creek Coffee at 8am on Saturday, March 10, for the Second Annual LAS Bird Hop. We had planned to visit Centennial first, then Albany, with breakfast at the Lodge, but co-leader Brian suggested we start in Albany, since The Beartree doesn’t open until 11am. Next year we will probably do the same.

The group enjoyed breakfast and bird watching at Albany Lodge, then moved on to Centennial, where three others joined the walk. The weather deviated from spitting snow to partial sunshine. While the feeder on the deck in Albany yielded little (a flock of rosy finches was spied flying over, and a single mountain chickadee visited the feeder during our breakfast), overall the trip was a success, with many other birds spotted along the way and on the walk around Centennial, for a total of:

60 Canada Goose

5   Canvasback

1   Lesser Scaup

5   Bufflehead

9   Common Merganser

1   Golden Eagle

1   Bald Eagle

1   Rough-legged Hawk, Light morph adult

3   Steller's Jay

11 Black-billed Magpie

10 Common Raven

3   Horned Lark

1   Black-capped Chickadee

2   Mountain Chickadee

5   Dark-eyed Junco

X   Red-winged Blackbird

50 Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch

1    Bald Eagle

X   Mountain Blue Bird