I finished up a three day trip to SE Colorado and (after reading my complaints for the last two days) clearly saved the best for last. I started at the Lamar CC Woods the three local specialties, Northern Cardinal, Red-bellied Woodpecker and Mississippi Kite. The fourth bird of the morning however was a blow-away-Golden-winged Warbler, and clearly the start of something good. As I kept birding LCC, I only found one other unusual warbler, a Northern Waterthrush, but the vireos were pretty good as I found Red-eyed, Cassin's and Philadelphia all toward the southern end of the wood.
Temple Grove was even better as I found Hooded (one female plus a bird I never saw but that sang persistently, so I'm presuming an additional male), two American Redstarts, an Ovenbird, a Magnolia Warbler and a Black-throated Green Warbler. Altogether I had 13 warbler species today and 4 vireos. On my way home, there were still more good birds to be found including one Snowy Plover and three Black-bellied Plovers at Neenoshe, a Long-billed Curlew just north of that spot. A female Summer Tanager was at the Eads Courthouse (I always like making a stop here, and am usually rewarded-perhaps it is the Leathermanesque tendency of the landscape architect to plant lots of hackberry trees.) Another spot I like to visit on my way to or from SE Colorado is the sewage treatment pond in Kit Carson-aka the only permanent body of water in the county. I'm still waiting on my first Canada Goose in Cheyenne County (Todd Deininger has one!) or my first American White Pelican, but I now have Brown Pelican on my Cheyenne County list! I hope no one hit the road for a glimpse after I got Mark Peterson to post it for me as the bird beat me out of town. I saw it in the air trying to figure out which way to the Gulf of Mexico as I left town myself. (I think a good bet might be Adobe Creek if anyone is in that area.) In order to avoid the Hugo highway construction, I took the dirt road from Wild Horse to Flagler. This road bisects is a nice riparian area shortly before it exits Cheyenne County and walking the road at that spot I found a Yellow-billed Cuckoo (which seemed early to me). Lastly I stopped at Flagler Reservoir. Who says there is no water on the plains? Flagler is "over the top" (well, not literally, but I guess that's the source of that expression.) It has more water than I have ever seen there and I've been doing a BBS route nearby for about 15 years. Who knew there was any water on the plains (before today's rain, that is.)? The best birds there were a flock of about 20 Stilt Sandpipers in really sharp breeding plumage. They were cowering because of nearby lightening in a corner below the dam. That made me realize that I was standing on the dam above the level of all nearby trees holding on to a 6 foot metal tripod while the lightening flash to sound lapse was about two seconds. It was time to go home. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
