COBirders, First, I apologize for the tardiness of this post. On Sunday morning, nine of us met at the visitors center (closed) at Bonny Lake SWA for an Aiken Audubon field trip. The weather was fantastic with cool temperatures in the morning to warm but not quite hot temperatures in the afternoon. Little to no wind most of the day and few clouds to start the day with none to be seen later.
We started with a leisurely walk around Wagon Wheel campground (also closed) which produced the only rarities of the day. There were a handful of YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERs, mostly consisting of Myrtle's with a couple of Audubon's and a few ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERs. These were the only two species of warbler we had all day. The first highlight came as we were checking the large flock of AMERICAN GOLDFINCHes, it was a YELLOW-THROATED VIREO. It actually had very similar colors as a number of the goldfinches but stood out with its bright white wing-bars, bright yellow spectacles, throat and belly and its dark and different shaped bill. All participants were able to see this bird even though it was not the most cooperative. It kept getting higher and into thicker leaves. We had been hearing both RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER and NORTHERN CARDINAL from farther south in the campground so we made our way there to see if we could find these birds. Once we were down there we realized the woodpecker was actually a ways away and the Cardinal had stopped vocalizing. Then all of the sudden another bird started making a lot of noise. Dan Maynard pointed out that it was a WHITE-EYED VIREO. Although this bird was being very secretive it ended up being much more cooperative than the Yellow-throated. It finally came out of the junipers and into an Elm where I believe everyone got good to great looks at the bird. Not to be upstaged, right after everyone had their fill of the Vireo, the male Northern Cardinal came in and landed right above us to give spectacular views and it sang non-stop for about ten minutes. I think this may have been the real highlight for most of the group for the days trip. The Red-bellied never came in for us. Later while walking around near Foster's campground (closed) we finally got good looks at a pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers. The "reservoir" had lots of dabbling ducks along with a group of BUFFLEHEAD and EARED GREBEs. There were a couple of 100 shorebirds but for the most part very poor viewing conditions. The few things that Dan Maynard and I saw first thing in the morning before the trip officially started were: KILLDEER, AMERICAN AVOCET, GREATER YELLOWLEGS, WILLET, LESSER YELLOWLEGS, LONG-BILLED CURLEW, MARBLED GODWIT, SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER, LEAST SANDPIPER, BAIRD'S SANDPIPER, PECTORAL SANDPIPER (1), LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER and WILSON'S SNIPE. Unfortunately, the shimmer sat in fairly quickly and we did not opt to walk out there with the group. I am unsure of how solid the mud is and did not want to even bother chancing it. A few of us have tested that mud before, only getting into it up to our wastes, not something to try with a field trip ;). Except for the breeders that are just not in yet, I believe of the typical birds you go to Bonny to look for, the only species that the group missed was Eastern Bluebird. We had a FIELD SPARROW sit and sing for us and give scope filling views and a few of us heard an EASTERN SCREECH-OWL at one point but it stopped quickly and we never heard it again. The night before the trip, Dan and I worked the marshes but could only find VIRGINIA RAIL and SORA, no bitterns or other rail species. We also heard Eastern Screech, GREAT HORNED and BARN OWLs. ----- Mark Peterson Colorado Springs -- 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.
