Prospect Park/Wheat Ridge City Greenbelt, Denver, 25 October 2005

This was my first visit to Denver, the “Mile High” City (which lies at a lung-tugging average of about 5200′/1585m above sea-level), but to be honest all I wanted to do was stay indoors and recover from the exertions of the trip I’d just done to Bangkok and Sydney’s Royal National Park (when I’d hired two cars and one guide, birded flat out for three days, worked on four flights, and gone from London to Sydney and back again in just eight days).

However, cloudless skies, warm weather, and the promise of perhaps a few birds relatively close to the hotel saw me getting up bright and early and heading off by taxi to the Prospect Park/Wheat Ridge City Greenbelt - a site I’d found on the internet that was described as “one of the best places in Denver for migrants”.

Of course, that would apply to the spring or to the autumn/fall, not to late-October - but as my real target bird, Franklin’s Gull (which on the net is described as being common in the Denver area on passage) would be somewhere off the coast of Peru this time of year, I decided to try it anyway as a recce for the next time I got sent to Denver at short notice with ‘not-enough-time-to-get-out-to-the-prairie-reserves-where-the-real-star-birds -are’ etc etc…

In the event I saw very few birds of any note - as I suspected most passerines had long since departed, and it was still too mild for any hard weather movements to have driven many waterfowl south - but I certainly found a site that looks to have enormous potential during passage periods. Basically slender areas of woodland either side of a beautiful creek, the Greenbelt extends for a couple of miles in between some housing developments - reaching out from close to downtown Denver westwards towards the foothills of the Rockies. It looks to be a natural migrant “funnel”, and it’s not hard to imagine why Denver residents find it so appealing: the trees are tall and well-developed, there are patches of grassland, and there are four lakes (Prospect, Tabor, West, and Bass).

It’s also extremely easy to get to. By car take Interstate 70 west out of Denver and turn onto W44th Ave and head for Prospect Park which is just before the junction with Tabor Street (the taxi cost me just over 20USD). An alternative is to take the No. 44 bus, which regularly travels the length of W44th right from downtown past the entrance to the park: tickets cost just 1.25USD (make sure you have the correct amount in coins and/or notes, I ended up paying 5USD as the drivers are not permitted to give any refunds or change).

 

I’m not sure where in the Greenbelt an experienced Denver birder would head, but what birds I did see (typical woodland species like Northern Flicker, White-breasted Nuthatch (photo above), Brown Creeper, and Spotted Towhee for example) were scattered more or less equally along the length of the creek. I walked over a bridge across the creek from a picnic area immediately behind Prospect Lake and just wandered up and down the well-laid tracks - pretty much what I imagine I’d have done if I’d been there in the spring and had been seeing warblers and thrushes everywhere.

The best areas for non-passerines were of course the lakes: of the four the two most “natural” looking, and the ones with the most waterfowl on subsequently - were West and Bass: there was a reasonable selection of ducks here including good numbers of American Wigeon, Gadwall, Ring-necked Duck, and Hooded Merganser, a heavily-moulting Double-crested Cormorant “drip-drying”, a Belted Kingfisher, and a small flock of (mainly) Ring-billed and California Gulls.

American Wigeons and Ring-necked Ducks

Double-crested Cormorant

California Gull

Ring-billed Gulls

Perhaps the most surprising “sighting” was of an extraordinarily fearless Red Fox. I’d read on the net that “Prospect Park is a good place to see Foxes” but I had no idea just how good. Despite a number of signs asking them not to, local residents put out food for the foxes here, and - unsurprisingly - some of them have become very bold. They seem to be quite a draw too, as I met a number of people who stroll down every morning to watch them. Not everyone approves of course - they are after all an introduced species that have caused havoc to ground-nesting birds - but I have to admit that seeing a Fox come trotting down a footpath and passing within a few feet is quite exhilarating. I’d be interested too if anyone reading this has any comment on whether the fox I photographed could be a hybrid - perhaps with a dog of some sort - or is typical of Red Foxes in the USA: it seems too short-muzzled and short-bodied to be a direct descendant of any fox I’ve ever seen in the UK.

I stayed in the area for about six hours before catching the bus back. It wasn’t by any means great birding, but Prospect Park/Wheat Ridge City Greenbelt is a remarkably beautiful place - and I would guess is well worth a visit at the right time of the year.

Trip List:
English and scientific names mainly from “The North American Bird Guide”, Sibley D, Pica Press, 2000:

Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps 3; Double-crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus 6-8; Black-crowned Night-heron Nycticorax nycticorax 1; Canada Goose Branta canadensis 30+; Mallard Anas platyrhynchos 20+; American Wigeon Anas americana c)20; Gadwall Anas strepera 15-20; Shoveler Anas clypeata 3; Ring-necked Duck Aythya collaris c)10; Redhead Aythya americana 4; Hooded Merganser Lophodytes cucullatus c)20; American Coot Fulica americana 4; Wilson’s Snipe Gallinago wilsonia 1; Ring-billed Gull Larus delewarensis 20+; California Gull Larus californicus 6-8; Belted Kingfisher Ceryle alcyon 1; Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens 1; “Red-shafted” Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus 3; Black-capped Chickadee Poecile atricapilla 4; Common Raven Corvus corax 1; American Crow Corvus brachyrhynchos 10+; Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata 2; Black-billed Magpie Pica pica 2; White-breasted Nuthatch Sitta carolensis 2; Brown Creeper Certhia americana 3-4; American Robin Turdis migratorius 3; Starling Sturnus vulgaris c)10; Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis 1; Spotted Towhee Pipilo maculatus 1; Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia 3; Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus 1; House Finch Carpodacus mexicanus 3-4; House Sparrow Passer domesticus 10+

All photographs © Charlie Moores.