A few days ago my wife and I went for a hike up Young’s Gulch, which flows down into the Cache la Poudre River west of Fort Collins. We were searching for a red-headed woodpecker that had recently been reported in that area. The trail follows the heavily wooded creek, which is apparently a great place for birds even on a blisteringly hot summer afternoon. We heard a lot of different songbirds as we hiked up the trail, although they can be challenging to spot and even more difficult to photograph. At one point there were a number of birds making quite a racket, so we stopped to try to identify them. My wife took a photo of a bird way in the distance and noticed that it had a rounded head. Perhaps an owl? I decided to try and get a closer look, so I headed up the steep hillside, which was covered with rocks, downed trees and heavy vegetation. I stopped every few feet to reaquire the bird and take a few photos, which I was able to confirm was an owl, albeit a small one. I probably spent around a half an hour slowly approaching it, eventually getting above where it was perched in order to get better a better background and lighting. I was able to get close enough to get the photos below without scaring it off, although it kept a close eye on me.
I later identified it as a northern Pygmy-owl, which is indeed rather small, about the size of a robin. While we had heard the characteristic high-pitched toots of Pygmy owls on several occasions, this is the first time that I had seen one. There were actually two owls perched on the tree when my wife first spotted it, but one flew off as I approached. After spending a while taking photographs of the owl, I headed back down to the trail and continued up the creek in search of the red-headed woodpecker. We did eventually spot one, and I got a poorly lit photo of it (shown below). Definitely a very colorful bird! We also saw a number of Lewis’s woodpeckers as well as other birds including a colorful western tanager. All said, it was a very successful bird hike with three new species that I had not previously photographed (northern Pygmy-owl, red-headed woodpecker and the Lewis’s woodpecker).