Damn Gray Jays and Clark's Nutcrackers

I just wanted to post an update and vent on the fact that everywhere in Colorado that people have told me I can find these two species has been a lie! Well, not maybe a lie but I am tempted to believe that these people don't know how to identify a gray jay or Clark's nutcracker. I have been to a few places so far and struck out. The most recent location was Brainard Lake, which is a beautiful place and the road/gate was just opened today!



I think that maybe the campground/picnic areas need a couple days of people with food to attract the gray jays so we will probably head back up there after the weekend. We did however get one hairy woodpecker on the way back and found her nest (I just posted some pics on picasa). We couldn't get her to come down to the call so we moved the net into a flight path near her nest and caught her which goes to show that watching the net is a good thing because I never would have found the nest or the flight path if I wasn't sitting there watching the net for 20 minutes or so. Back in Golden and hanging out with afternoon thunderstorms, of course! I don't care what people here say but when it rains almost every day I have been in Colorado and they keep saying this isn't typical, I say they are full of it! We did have a pretty neat thunder and lightning show last night though and I was REALLY glad to not be in my tent!