Hannah Espy and I headed out to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve out in Alamosa County this weekend for a camping trip. I squeezed some birding in while there and had the following highlights. Thanks to Ted Floyd for his very in-depth post about the area last week.
Great Sand Dunes NP campground: Surprisingly little activity. Only a few *Mountain Chickadees* and *Mountain Bluebirds *hanging around and no owls heard either night. The abundance of people might keep most things away. The lunar eclipse over the dunes was pretty spectacular but very cold. Great Sand Dunes Preserve Primitive road: *Clark's Nutcrackers* and *Pinyon Jays* were everywhere on 4/5 on a brief hike both north and south of the parking lot before the road becomes 4x4 access only. We also had both* Red* and* White-breasted Nuthatches.* Zapata Falls: We had a few *Pinyon Jays* fly over and one *Western Scrub-Jay* near the base of the road on 4/4. The falls are frozen right now and look amazing. Worth a visit even if you don't see too much on the 1/4 mile hike to the falls. I did not hear any owls at the trailhead or along the drive up from 5:15-5:45 am on 4/5. Zapata Ranch: What a difference ~1/2 mile can make. A visit to the gate at 5:15 AM and 5:45 AM on 4/5 produced zero owls seen or heard. I had a pretty good view of the creek system and lodge from where I was, but the wind was pretty high, making it hard to hear if there were any calling in the distance. >From the gate we did have *Pinyon Jays *and *Bushtits * at around 4:00 pm on 4/4 Ln 6: I finally got a *Great Horned Owl* hovering (didnt know they would do that) in the wind over an ag field just East of Mosca at dawn on 4/5. There was a raptor-sized nest on the southeast corner of the field, but it was too distant to see if it was occupied. I then headed east along LN 6 and saw many *Sage Thrashers. *They were present at every stop I made. At one I even had four perched on 4 adjacent sagebrush/rabbitbrush. Many were singing which made locating them rather easy. I also had two singing (and seen) *Sagebrush Sparrows*, one at either end of the road. There were probably more out there, but the wind was still pretty high at that point. At the entrance to San Luis State Park, I had my only *Eurasian Collared-Dove* of the trip. I also had what I thought was a *Northern Shrike *(late?) at the canal crossing (there is a structure, un-used raptor nest, and a cattle guard there), but did not see Ted's Loggerhead. At the same canal I had a single *Brewer's Blackbird* and around 12 *Green-winged Teal. * I hopefully have a decent enough picture of the shrike, but I haven't had a chance to go through my photos. About 1 mile north of the East end of LN 6, towards the Sand Dunes, Hannah and I had an adult *Golden Eagle* eating what appeared to be a roadkilled deer on the side of the road. There were *Common Ravens* on the same carcass on 4/4. On the drive home yesterday (4/5) we stopped by El Paso county for *Mountain Plovers. *We did not see any at the Milne Road location, but did see two *Burrowing Owls* and a pair of *Killdeer* there. On the drive out from I-25 we also found a *Loggerhead Shrike* perched on a wire. After striking out at Milne, we headed over to the school ruins at Squirrel Creek Road and Squirrel Creek Place. Somewhere along the way (not sure exactly where we were) we flushed a *Ferruginous Hawk* from the roadside. At the school ruins were had more Burrowing Owls. They were spread out with single birds seen on all sides of the road (about 6 total). On the east side of the road, north of the ruins and south of the lone tree out there, we did have a pair of Mountain Plovers. They were foraging about 50 yards from the roadside. With mission success, we headed back to the highway through Fountain and did not stop at the cowfield at Squirrel Creek and Ellicot Hwy. Somewhere west of there, as we neared Fountain we drove past a pond where I noticed 5 *American Avocets* and at least one male *Cinnamon Tea*l, but we did not stop. In Fountain proper, we rounded out the trip with 5 ( *Wild*) *Turkeys* walking across a field. All in all, we had a blast and got four lifers: Mountain Plover, Pinyon Jay, Sagebrush Sparrow, and Sage Thrasher. Bill Blackburn Broomfield, 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/3c77682e-7a0e-44c2-b6d2-756e281c58f2%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
