For nearly two years now I've been working on a long-term goal to bird the National Parks system, which is ultimately what this blog is about, but my internal debate on whether to start a blog was rendered by another trip and my broader birding goal. So bear with me while I start this first post outside of the National Parks system and give you the origin story of my pen name.
This first post is about my nemesis bird(s), naturally nemesis birds lead to frustration and mine was exasperated by the lack of information available to help me pinpoint mine, so this is my attempt to make a small contribution to the greater online birding community’s database, to help the next birder. Don’t get me wrong, ebird is amazing and it got me 99% of the way there but I needed help with that last 1% in this particular case. So I plan to share not just the location and story of some of my best sightings but some of the details and tips that might help other birders. This story in particular is a great example of where not to look.
I first became obsessed with the Rosy-finches when I read The Big Year by Mark Obmascik and then saw sightings at an ebird hotspot near me, at Brainard Lake by Ward, Colorado. I fell in love with their blush coloring, a spectacular twist on the coloration of the common house finches that dominated my suburbian feeder. I was determined to lay eyes on these beauties, currently 3 species, the Black Rosy-Finch, the Brown-capped Rosy Finch, and the Grey-crowned Rosy-Finch.
Plan A was to join my Mom on snow-shoeing trips at Brainard Lake where they can be seen in winter, allegedly. After a handful of trips without even a single bird sighting though I took a page out of every book that’s ever mentioned the Rosy-finch.
Plan B was to find them on a feeder, and the perfect opportunity fell into my lap about a year later, in the form of a family ski trip to Aspen where there are both bird feeders and Rosy-finches. We all arrived in high spirits, my in-laws were excited to ski and I had dug up a couple old postings online that told me there was a feeder at the top of the ski lift at Snowmass, its continued existence implicitly confirmed by a hot spot and sightings on ebird. I don’t like skiing so I planned to buy a sightseeing pass and ride the gondola up. We arrived late in the afternoon and at dinner I was thrilled that nothing stood between me and seeing the Rosy-finches except a good night’s sleep. Until, towards the end of dinner, the waitress approached our table “sorry guys, bad news, the Colorado governor shut everything down.” She got blank stares, we knew why but still we couldn’t process it. It was April of 2020 and COVID was on everyone’s minds, by that time there were several cases on the West Coast. We asked questions until we were 100% convinced the lifts would not run for the foreseeable future.
Plan C had me scouring neighborhoods the next day for a bird feeder but after hours I came up empty-handed, they were either too bear conscious (a local website did strongly advise against bird feeders in Aspen) or they were hidden in backyards. I patiently birded the trail by Aspen’s nature center with no luck either. That’s when they became my nemesis bird, I knew I was destined to have one (or in this case 3), many of the birding greats like Greg Miller (Snowy Owl) and Neil Hayward (Mountain Quail) had their own. They’d been on my mind for over a year and a trip I felt guaranteed to see Rosy-Finches on produced none.
Plan D became Sandia crest, in 2021 we moved to New Mexico and thanks to e-bird and the Sandia Crest house website I learned that the feeder they stocked, like the one at SnowMass, was a popular place to see two species of the Rosy-finches (gray and brown). Only I quickly learned that in the winter of 2021, like many places, they were still closed from COVID. I waited for them to open in the 2022 season with no luck either. Finally in 2023, it still didn’t open, but emboldened by ebird sightings, I decided we would make the 4 hour trip to finally check it out. However, that morning our dog had a seizure and we made the four hour trip not to the rugged peak that looms over Albuquerque but to an animal hospital within the city. I was starting to feel jinxed with respect to these birds but fortunately our dog’s seizure was an anomaly and he’s currently happy and healthy.
Back to Plan B, around the same time our family decided it was time to attempt our Aspen ski trip again. You know the routine, we arrived in the afternoon, excited, ate dinner, no one told us the ski resort was closing, progress! In the morning I planned to wait for my husband after he skied and confirmed there was a feeder at the top of the gondola but he texted me a picture, he’d found a feeder and seen Rosy-finches! I couldn’t wait another second. He wasn’t responding to confirm the location so I called the Aspen Nature Center and after I explain that a Rosy-finch is a bird, not a flower, and they found someone knowledgeable on the subject they confirmed that I could buy a sightseeing pass and ride the Elk Camp gondola to the bird feeder. So I hopped on the gondola, and arrived at a packed restaurant that I circled twice, no feeder. The fourth employee I asked had heard of the bird feeder and told me it’s at the Elk camp summit, one more lift up. My husband’s response finally came in, his report came from Sam’s knob. I begged the summit lift operator to let me on without skis but he wouldn’t cave, the sad truth was that I had a $50 gondola pass that only brought me to a restaurant and neither of the two bird feeders on the slopes.
Heart-broken, I hastily rehatched Plan C. I rode the gondola down and jumped straight in my car, I had to find a neighborhood feeder. ebird reported sightings in town after all and a birder in a forum said that’s how they saw them (albeit with the help of a local guide). Neighborhood after neighborhood there was nothing, not a surprise given most places in and around Aspen are short-term rentals or vacation homes. I eventually learned that I should look for areas with Christmas decorations and finally located a feeder! As I pulled up a couple dozen finch-sized birds flushed and I settled in in front of the neighbors house to await their return. However, I wasn’t there for more than 3 minutes when the feeder’s homeowner let his dogs out and stood in his window with a look of “I’m not leaving till you do” and embarrassed I hastily moved on.
You’re probably wondering why Plan E was, well, Plan E. Why didn’t I just go skiing yesterday with my husband? I just have a huge resistance to skiing and paying that much money for it, not to mention I’d have to ski with my camera and binocs. However,I did have my old gear in the car, I wasn’t going home this time without spending some time with the Rosy-finches. So I sucked it up and bought a lift ticket. The next day I was finally on the lift with my husband headed up to Sam’s Knob. As we approached the summit my heart lifted as we caught sight of a dozen birds on the feeder, I readied myself for a flood of relief but it didn’t come and when I caught up with my brain I realized that the size and dashing behavior of those birds were telling me they were chickadees, not finches. My husband had seen about a dozen Rosy-finches here the day before, the photo was proof, but it wasn’t a great spot right in front of the lift and after 20 minutes none appeared. We decided to try Elk Camp Summit, it was at a higher elevation and we could always return here.
On the way up the Elk Camp lift our lift-mate called himself a regular at Snowmass so we asked him if he knew anything about the birds, “actually, there is a rare bird up here, I think it’s some kind of grosbeak,” he replied. “It’s a Rosy-finch” I corrected, “no….” he said as though I’d offered a random guess, “that’s not it, I see those red finches everywhere, they’re not rare, I wish I could remember the name.” “You’re thinking of a house finch, these are Rosy-finches” I said as confidently as I could. “No….” he said again, “a ranger told me about it and it wasn’t a finch, I’ll have to look it up.” How do I let this guy know that I’m not asking, I’m telling I wondered when the summit started to come into sight. I strained to see past the end of the lift when in a medium-sized pine tree next to a small cabin under the lift a flock of easily 100 birds dispersed and then resettled into the pine as a person exited the cabin. I had watched enough House finches at my own feeder to say with confidence, those were finches and that flood of relief finally came, they were here! As my husband and I pointed them out excitedly the skier proclaimed “I’m going to take a look at them too, see if I can figure out what they are.”
The back side of the cabin/tree with the feeder
From there we half slid and half ran down to the cabin, took a few photos from a distance in case they spooked and never came back and then I plopped myself at a table under the feeder. Elusive as they are it turns out they are not that shy and we spent an amazing 30 minutes standing two feet from vibrantly pink Gray-crowned and Brown-capped Rosy-finches. We learned that the cabin was the Nature Center and we helped the employee refill the feeders as I gushed thanks at her for maintaining the feeder that enabled us to spend time with these birds. I tried holding some sunflower seeds in my hand to see if they would accept it straight from me but it was far too cold and even gloved I could bear to hold out my hand for more than a minute. They were beautiful and curious and an absolute joy to observe, I can’t wait to return, skis and all.
So here I am, sharing with you all that in Snowmass, at the Elk Camp Summit (all the way at the top) there is a nature center under the lift that has a bird feeder that hosts dozens of Rosy-Finches in the winter. There is a picnic table next to it outside but also a window and bench inside, right in front of the feeder, for your viewing pleasure. Bring lunch so that you can camp there all day.
So begins my blog,
Rosy Finn
A view of the feeder and the front door of the nature center
A view from inside the warm nature center
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