Boulder – Cars whiz by, joggers limber up for morning runs and dog walkers unload retrievers into the parking lot at Tom Watson Park.
Amid the commotion, a small cluster of birdwatchers stands motionless, binoculars raised, gazing in silent awe. Overhead, a young bald eagle wheels in slow circles around its admirers.
“That’s probably a 3-year-old,” Steve Runnels said softly. “See, there’s a little white in his tail, a little on his head. Isn’t that wild?”
Score one more eagle for the 10th annual Great Backyard Bird Count.
From Friday through Monday, birdwatchers across America will be identifying and tallying millions of birds everywhere from backyard feeders to wildlife refuges, parking lots and strip-mall roofs.
The yearly census, hosted by the National Audubon Society and Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, depends on volunteers posting results at www.birdsource.org/gbbc.
Last year, in a record-breaking warm winter, the bird counters tallied record numbers of snowy owls south of the Canadian border, tree swallows venturing farther north and a huge convocation of robins in the fruit trees of Washington state.
Saturday, the Boulder group spotted five bald eagles – a species once threatened with extinction – thriving near a prairie dog colony at Tom Watson Park.
Led by Steve Frye, owner of the Wild Bird Center in Boulder, the group set out at 7:30 a.m. with binoculars and a spotting scope.
Three hours later, they had counted 15 red-tailed hawks, some ravens, some gulls, and a bunch of robins and starlings.
At Coot Lake, across the road from the park, they took turns peering through Frye’s scope at a golden eagle perched on a fencepost atop Haystack Mountain. They spotted an American kestrel on a tree branch, marveling at its red-and-gold plumage.
“They have false eye spots on the backs of their heads. They’re beautiful, beautiful birds,” Frye said.
To the trained eye of a veteran birdwatcher, no two eagles look alike and no robin is ordinary. Runnels has learned to gauge the age of eagles from the development of their white feathers. Frye pointed to the unusually pale plumage of a robin feasting on a Russian olive tree. That one probably was bred in Alaska, he said.
Frye doesn’t just count birds on one weekend in February. He has led tours from his store each Saturday for 17 years – including his wedding day.
“You have to have a wedding day bird walk,” he said. “We did a great bird walk. Saw a red-necked grebe.”
Frye also keeps track of the birds lured to his back yard by feeders and a heated birdbath. And at his shop, in a corner of a shopping mall, the staff keeps binoculars and a notepad handy to tally birds spotted outside.
Saturday morning’s store count: 25 European starlings, 14 house sparrows, 10 Canada geese, seven pigeons, six ravens, five finches and four crows.
In the end, the great bird count is not precise work. At the lake, Frye’s crew debated whether to report three dozen or four dozen robins. And how many Canada geese were in that massive flock that flew up earlier?
Frye settled on “600 geese,” said Clark Anderson, who carried a Western bird guide to help with the tally. “He counted the legs and divided by two.”
Staff writer David Olinger can be reached at 303-954-1498 or dolinger@denverpost.com.
