I took off this morning in hopes of finding some Greater Prairie Chickens in the NE corner of the state.
Initially I drove to Tamarack SWA and drove around the west and south sides, south of I-76. I found no chickens, but lots of sparrows and kingbirds, so I continued down Logan County Road 93 (Red Lion exit road to the south). I've had success with chickens on this road before, but all the cornfields which seem to attract them had been wiped out by hail, and hardly any birds were evident. Next up was Haxtun. I had a couple of Red-headed Woodpeckers on the north side of the city park, which also held a couple of Western Wood Pewees, a Wilson's Warbler and the ubiquitous Red-breasted Nuthatch. Most interesting was a first year Magnolia Warbler. The bird was yellow underneath with a gray hood and eye-ring. I was going to call Nashville until I noticed a pair of bright wing-bars. I did not see any black streaking along the flanks, however. >From Haxtun, I headed east to PCR 29 and then south, hoping to find some water >spots. Not much along the way, but the Patent Creek Playa along YCR 58 had a >few Burrowing Owls, lots of Killdeers and habitat that might be good for >Buff-breasted Sandpiper if anyone is in the area and wants to take a peek over >the next few weeks. It is a nice spot that with a little more water can get >interesting. >From Patent Creek, I continued toward Wray until I finally hit gold with four >Greater Prairie Chickens crossing the road, who knows why, but I was glad they >did. This was on FF north of the Bledsoe feedlot at CR 422. After lunch at the Riverside Café in Wray (I think I was celebrating my 30th anniversary of first eating there) I stopped at Stalker Ponds. I had an enjoyable walk back to the NW corner. If you visit keep going back as far as you can, because that's where the shorebirds are, Spotted, Least and Semi-palmated in my case today. A family of Orchard Orioles were below the dam. As I continued home, I decided that I had the time to cut up to Prewitt Reservoir. It looked good as I drove by on I-76 going east, and it was. Several thousand birds were present at Prewitt including several hundred American White Pelicans. I tried to scan-count total shorebirds and got to almost 500. At least half of those were Killdeer, but I had at least 12 species including 5 Sanderlings, 3 or 4 Long-billed Dowitchers and a few Red-necked Phalaropes. Others in the past couple of days have added enough other species to put together a list of about 20 species. If you are looking for something to do tomorrow and you are willing to drive a couple hours and then get a little muddy, I would go to Prewitt and wade the inlet canal creek somewhere on the west end in order to get to the SW side to see the developing shorebird congregation. 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/BY2PR0301MB1639A05C085AC88E601563BCE1990%40BY2PR0301MB1639.namprd03.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
