My wife and I returned on Monday from a nice tour by the Nature Conservancy to
their Fox Ranch property in Yuma County (well known to Ted and others) and then
on toWray, Colorado to see Greater Prairie Chickens putting on a wonderful
show. We then spent a couple hours at Bonny State Park before returning home.
While not much in the way of rarities, we saw 54 species. Of those on the Fox
Ranch, they included one lone White-faced Ibis, a pair of Blue-winged Teal, one
Say's Phoebe,one Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler, and a large flock of
Yellow-headed Blackbirds. On the lek near Wray, besides the 22 males and 6
female Greater Prairie Chickens, therewere 2 or 3 Burrowing Owls wondering what
kind of neighborhood they had just moved into.
On our quick visit to Bonny, we saw a nice pair of Eastern Bluebirds, American
White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, a flock of ibis flying assuming to
be White-faced Ibis,a pair of Wood Ducks, both Blue-winged and Green-winged
Teal, a single Gadwall, Redhead, and female Bufflehead, and 100-200 Shovelers
and Ruddy Ducks. We also saw6-8 Avocets, another Say's Phoebe, and Tree and
Barn Swallows.
But one of the most amazing sights for us were Northern Harriers along U.S.
Highway 36 in Washington County. We have seen Northern Harriers in around 25
States as wellas other countries and also have seen 11 other species of
Harriers throughout the world. Almost always, we have only seen one to three
Harriers at a time. While this musthappen every year, we passed a field on our
way to the Fox Ranch that had 9 Northern Harriers setting in the field plus
another 2 or 3 flying around. They all appeared to befemales (or possibly
juveniles which I believe also are brown in color). We saw around 20 Harriers
in all on the trip but we thought this was very interesting.
Happy Birding,
Laura & Wayne WathenHighlands Ranch
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