We were acutely aware from various reports, including a WhatsApp from Megan (Norfolk based birder) who is coincidentally leading a birding tour out here at the moment, that we were still missing a couple of major targets. Having visited the two sites for these species four times each over the past two days we awoke, for our last morning in the Rockies, with little optimism. Jane wanted an early visit to Loveland Pass to look for the Ptarmigan but I thought we should start at the garden feeders in Silverthorne for Black Rosy-finch. In the end that’s what we did, agreeing a clear cut-off to give ourselves time to look for the Ptarmigan before heading back to Denver. We arrived at Royal Red Bird Drive (an apt location given yesterday’s post!) to a busy set of feeders. It wasn’t long before we had our first new species – a couple of spectacular Evening Grosbeak. Numbers of Rosy-finch fluctuated as they were regularly flushed by the nuisance squirrel. It was getting nearly time to leave when finally a Black Rosy-finch flew in to join the other two members of the family – Brown-capped and Grey-crowned. Phew, a mega bird and a major relief. We departed and headed up the pass to start our search for White-tailed Ptarmigan – one of the most difficult of the mountain game birds to find. We stopped and scanned extensively at the first site before moving further up towards the summit. As we pulled in to the last lay-by we came across Ryan from Birding Man Adventures – he was guiding two guests, looking for the same elusive target. He disappeared on a snowy trail over the hill, reappearing ten minutes later saying he’d found them and did we want to come?! We yomped up the hillside to a spot where we could see a small clump of willow twigs sticking up out of the snow. Looking harder we could see two, pure white, Ptarmigan! They allowed a reasonably close approach, completely un-bothered by our presence. Ryan said he thinks they rely on their cryptic plumage rather than flying off – ‘you ain’t seen me, right’! The rest of the day was spent doing the vehicle change-over and visiting Barr Lake State Park, where we added Wood Duck to our trip list, before driving on to our over-night stop at Greeley. Two fabulous birds, one black the other white, seen in the very last hours of our ten day tour of the Rockies. Now on to the prairies…