To tag onto Dave's post about the weirdness in SECO, after our lesser pchick
outing, we drove south from Holly to check out a couple of Mountain Plover
sites. We picked up a couple of birds, just in the nick of time. Minutes
later, a huge wall of dust overwhelmed us, reducing visibility to about ten
feet. Shortly thereafter, it started to rain and I experienced my first
mudstorm. Making it to the highway, we encountered a semi with a pickup truck
(whose driver obviously did not see the benefit of slowing down when unable to
see) buried up its tailpipe.
I'm still hoping not to hear from the rental car outfit......
Norm Lewis
Lakewood, CO
-----Original Message-----
From: DAVID A LEATHERMAN <daleather...@msn.com>
To: COBIRDS <cobirds@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Apr 30, 2014 7:44 am
Subject: [cobirds] Lamar (Prowers) and nearby places of late
It's been windy of late in Lamar, like everywhere else. But I'll put
southeastern CO up against anywhere for meteorological extremes. We need to
invent some new weather descriptors. Sunday the big, ominous cloud approaching
town from the west was the color of milk chocolate. The small amount of rain
that fell was more like dilute mud than anything else. Ask everybody down here
who owns a white vehicle because dark ones get too hot in the summer. There
was a bit of thunder, lightning, and hail mixed in for accent. The State
Patrol closed 287 south of town for at least the second time this year due to
minimal visibility. Somebody somewhere is getting a lot of free dirt. The
City needs to pay stipends, maybe provide lengthy residencies, for creative
artists to brainstorm beneficial uses for tumbleweeds. You have to admit,
watching a platoon (division?) of them advance across a field, they are amazing
plants. Night (and day) of the living dead plants. Botanical zombies.
The word "surprised" was applied to a Broad-winged Hawk seen here yesterday.
NOTHING should surprise anyone who has any experience about this place with
birds, weather, or people (with or without binoculars).
Duane Nelson finds a surreal, crisp Hermit Warbler at Tempel's Grove (Bent). A
woman from Rhode Island, who should have been too tired from the demands of her
grouse tour led by Norm Lewis, finds a beautiful Golden-winged Warbler trying
to blend in among Yellow-rumps feeding in the cottonwood flowers at Lamar
Community College. Mark Peterson finds not one, but two, Summer Tanagers on
the ground flipping over leaves on Prowers Rd SS a little east of US287, with
Guinea Hens and Peacocks in the background. Two Gray-cheeked Thrushes have
been seen of late, one at a private farm south of Lamar and another at Tempel's
(in April, no less). A very rare spring Rufous Hummingbird watched that
chocolate sky last weekend. Was it really a Broad-tail that flew thru the
storm for a make-over? At least 14 species of warblers have been seen in
Prowers and Bent Counties so far (in April, no less). Never in 40 years of
coming down here have I seen so many Hermit Thrushes and Wilson's Warblers in
spring as have been present the last few days. Yesterday a Hermit Thrush was
on the ground in a patch of prairie south of Holly where Lesser
Prairie-Chickens have been reported, mixing with Grasshopper Sparrows on
territory. Nearby (Prowers Road B west of SR89 about a mile w of the Kansas
line) two Mountain Plovers pulled cutworms out of a sparse, muddy wheat field.
Three more Hermit Thrushes were among the depressing dorm foundations in the
former Japanese-American Relocation Camp at Amache w of Granada, where there
was also a bright male Audubon's Warbler just sitting on the ground and a Least
Flycatcher plying calmer air on the backside of a tight juniper windbreak. Two
Willets towered over a mixed flock of blackbirds in a flooded corral within the
City limits of Holly. The pair of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers reported near a
motel in Holly could still be present. Certainly super windy conditions
require them to do something special in deference to those posterior plumes.
Getting back to Hermit Thrushes and Wilson's Warblers, every good patch of
habitat has multiples of both. It is like the south winds that preceded these
relentless north winds brought them in, then sentenced them to three days of
evolutionary boot camp trying to survive by hiding down low on the south side
of understory vegetation eating whatever they can find.
Anyone who thinks birds aren't tough, needs to have been outside the last
couple days.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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