"At Altitude"

Friday night, I had good beer with dinner, a Blue Paddle Pilsener. I was pretty dehydrated, and I got a headache. It got worse, to the point that I went to bed at about 7:30. Luckily I woke up about 11 hours later, and felt great. Saturday morning, I left Boulder, after a typically awesome breakfast with the Chase-Jacobsens. When leaving town I stopped at Lookout Mountain. While it wasn't too birdy, I did come accross a lifer PYGMY NUTHATCH cleaning out a hole for himself in a pine.


After another hour or so of driving, I diverted from I-70, and went out on Loveland Pass. This place was incredibly beautiful. I attempted to find a WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN and BROWN-CAPPED ROSY-FINCH on a mile or so hike through about 6 inches of snow, but with no luck.


I arrived in Grand Junction, which was a very different environment than where I started the day, at about 5pm. I met with Mike from couchsurfing, and we headed to the Breckenridge Brewing Co. for dinner and a few beers. I went to bed pretty early to get a good start on Sunday morning.

At about 8am, I headed to the Colorado National Monument. Immediately, I came accross tons of WHITE-THROATED SWALLOWS, roosting in the walls, and flying around the canyon. During the ~30 mile drive through the park, I saw a number of other southwestern specialties, that'll give me a headstart on some of the species that I'll be searching for in the spring. ROCK WREN, BUSHTIT, and JUNIPER TITMOUSE all presented themselves to me here.

I then drove about 5 hours to Salt Lake City and met up with Bill. We hung out at his house for a bit, then headed over to Carl and Britt's house, which is a loaner home for Carl's volunteer work with HawkWatch International. We talked birds most of the night over bean burritos, and Carl gave Bill and I some tips of where to go birding today.

We woke up at about 7 to head to Wasatch National Forest. The hike took us to a couple nice lakes, and over a pretty large peak. It wasn't all that birdy, but we repeatedly got excellent looks at a calling CLARK'S NUTCRACKER.


Exhausted, we have just come back to his house for a celebratory Pabst.