Hey Cobirders -- David Dowell and I looped through Washington, Logan, Phillips and Sedgwick counties today. Migrants were in many places and I saw so many lifers (12) it's almost embarrassing, considering I've been living in CO a year now.
We started off the morning with those notorious long-distance migrants, GREATER PRAIRIE CHICKENS, at the previously reported location (Logan CR 93 between CR 44 and CR 46). Also present were clay-colored sparrows and brown thrashers. Haxtun had a few common residents and migrants, nothing special. Holyoke City Park was quite an experience, feeling like a mini fallout. Two BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLERS, a NASHVILLE WARBLER, a TENNESSEE WARBLER, six redstarts, warbling and red-eyed vireos, yellow and Wilson's warblers, pewees, an empid, etc. all very active. The Holyoke cemetery was okay, with olive-sided flycatcher and orioles. Our takeaway from Julesberg: skip the town and the cemetery, bird the rest area. The rest area (right on I-76) had a PLUMBEOUS VIREO and yellow, Wilson's and redstart warblers. Ovid Woods was pretty quiet in the heat of the afternoon, but we saw a DUSKY FLYCATCHER, two RED-BREASTED NUTHATCHES (early for the plains), and some surprising wild turkeys, among others. Tamarack was hot and dry. We ended the day at Prewitt, planning to bird the inlet canal, but every dirt pulloff had an encampment and every field had at least a couple of hunters. Maybe there is a special Labor Day hunt going on. Not sure what the story is or if the hunters will be there tomorrow. So we went to Plan B, land-birding the west side of the reservoir, then walking out onto the half-empty lakebed to view thousands of shorebirds. At Prewitt, we saw Townsend's warblers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, a single CASPIAN TERN, marbled godwit, long-billed curlew, solitary sandpipers, hundreds of Wilson's phalaropes and a handful of red-necked phalaropes, avocets, stilt, stilt sandpipers, a bald eagle, many ducks and pelicans, etc. etc. It looks like they are draining Prewitt very fast, so the shorebird habitat may not last much longer. Again, not sure what the story is. Sunset sure was beautiful though. Happy fall and good birding to all, Chris Rurik Denver, CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/87f538f6-32ab-4893-9731-dcbee998f432%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
