30 years ago – October 26, 1984
By Esther Campbell: The thermometer on the porch reads 20 degrees and there is a snowy mist over the gulch. Winter is early for another season, the gray crowned rosy breasted finches are here from the western Arctic. My diary reports that last winter I saw them for the first time here on the Casey on November 16. The brown capped rosy finches were here last week, but they breed in the Colorado Rockies above timberline. I’ve been reading “The Migration of Birds” by Jean Dorst of the Natural History Museum, Paris. I was startled to learn that the study of migration is fairly new. Scientists before the 18th century believed birds hibernated like mammals. In 1770, a man by the name of Buffon published a volume called “The Natural History of Birds.” His experiment of putting several swallows in an icebox where they promptly died proved his theory that most birds are not able to reduce their bodily functions to a torpor state. J.J. Audubon did a great deal of work in the study using the banding method. With the invention of radar, more was learned. Still there are a lot of blank spaced. This book, published in 1963, ends by saying: “Migrations, like birds themselves, are multiple and involve a number of differed elements which cannot be reduced to a rigid formula.” But, as long as the folks of Gilpin County can furnish a feeder with sunflower seeds, I pray we will see the rosy finches!
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