Like just about everyone else, I had a great day of birding today, just in a different place from just about everyone else.
Yesterday I went out to Holyoke in order to bird my way back today. Highlights on the trip east on 5/16 were American Redstart at Cottonwood SWA by the Platte near Snyder on CO 71 (Morgan County); Red-necked Phalaropes (a few in the 200 or so Wilson's) at the Haxtun (Phillips County) wastewater ponds (as an aside, I found out last night that the people of Holyoke don't like the people of Haxtun-they feel the Haxtunites are uppity. Who knew?); Veery at Frenchman Creek SWA (Phillips County) and lots of good stuff including another American Redstart, a female Blackpoll Warbler and a Common Poorwill at the Holyoke Cemetery (I think Dave Leatherman was the landscape architect for this place). Today, I returned to the cemetery to start and then birded the Holyoke town park and county seat grounds. I had ten warblers (including Magnolia, at least 4 more Blackpolls, another American Redstart and a Townsend's) plus Western Tanager and Rose-breasted Grosbeak by 8 a.m. I continued to Julesburg and dePooter Ponds where a breeding plumaged Common Loon arrived as I did. Northern Parula and Common Yellowthroat made it 12 warblers-all east of US 385. But that was it on that front. Just west of Sedgwick I found an Upland Sandpiper, one of my targets for sure. At Jumbo (Sedgwick County for these birds) I had a Peregrine Falcon buzzing an Osprey-the Osprey was actually the oddity. I don't think I've ever seen one at Jumbo before. Water was high everywhere, even at Red Lion (Logan County). As a result the shorebird results were not all that exciting for the trip (plug-I guess you will have to come to the CFO convention in August if you really want to get a shorebird fix). Red Lion had a few Red-necked Phalaropes in the couple of hundred Wilson's; if that sounds like a repeat, it is; plus my first Stilt Sandpipers of the year. Better shorebirds, it turns out, were in Tamarack (Logan County). The tracks between the hedgerows are mainly flooded creating new shorebird habitat. Unfortunately the plant like hides what is in the water for the most part, but bigger things like two Willet and Greater Yellowlegs and more Stilt Sandpipers stood tall enough to be seen. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- 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/F90B1155A81D474890D22EEFFFA7CAE51C199622CB%40EXC4.ad.colorado.edu. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
