It was the morning of Friday, the 13th (of March), about 9:30, and we were standing behind our Sable wagon, looking down the drive about 75 feet at a game bird on the other side of our gate. We grabbed binoculars and should have figured out at that point that it was a Chukar, but we had only seen them twice before -- in Escalante Canyon a couple years ago and, sometime in the 1990s, on the Big Island of Hawaii.
There we were, in plain sight, and that bird appeared bothered not one bit. Under the gate it squeezed, sauntered up the driveway to within a few feet of us and strolled past unfazed, by now having chosen the flagstone path that leads to our feeding station. Not hungry enough for niger or black-oil sunflower, it proceeded along the path and onto the lawn beyond. Soon it reached the neighbor's fence but stayed on our side, strutting along our gated irrigation pipe.
How long it hung around, I can't say. We had been headed out, and on we went, pausing first to check a field guide.
The habitat is not prime-Chukar territory. We live in a rural subdivision on Spring Creek Mesa west of Montrose, surrounded by irrigated pastureland. If anyone in the area is raising Chukars, we aren't aware of it. As the Chukar flies, there would be dry, rocky habitat within half a mile, though we aren't aware that Chukar have been introduced there. Escalante Canyon is more than 20 miles to the north of us.
No matter. It was a Project FeederWatch count day for us, and we could list a Chukar. Now we're waiting for a Chachalaca.
herb probasco montrose, co
