Hiking along the South Platte on this bright, June morning, my attention was drawn to a large clump of dead and dying cottonwoods, rising above a clearing on the river's floodplain. This island of trees was alive with birds and, over the next twenty minutes or so, I saw nearly every songbird that summers in the South Platte Valley.
Western kingbirds, mourning doves, belted kingfishers, broad-tailed hummingbirds, grackles, brown-headed cowbirds and various swallows stopped to perch on the dead limbs. A western wood pewee was flycatching from one of the snags while northern orioles, yellow warblers, chickadees and house finches scoured the living branches. Northern flickers were nesting in one of the dead trunks and their abandoned cavities were now rented by house wrens and tree swallows. Finally, a gray catbird called from dense thickets that enveloped the base of the island.
Of course, all of these songbirds are common throughout the Valley in June but the isolation of this clump, its exposed perching sites and the social nature of birds combined to produce the spectacle. Like myself, these avian visitors were both attracted by the activity of their neighbors and comforted by their presence.
