[cobirds] Tent camping in Baca County

[Tom Wilberding]

The CFO website mentions Cottonwood Canyon in Baca County: “A visit here 
will seldom leave a birder disappointed!” 
https://cobirds.org/CountyBirding/County/BySite.aspx?SiteID=36

 

Barb and I second that opinion. We spent two nights there this week and 
enjoyed the birds and wilderness very much, worth the six hour drive from 
Littleton. Here is a five minute account of our trip. No rarities, but if 
you are thinking of visiting Baca County, you may benefit from our 
experience.

 

My goal was to see and photograph birds, and to photograph the Milky Way 
for the first time, which requires a camera, a tripod, a 
clear-dark-moonless sky, and insomnia. The eastern prairie of Colorado has 
no big cities, so dark skies are possible.

 

Baca County, Colorado’s most southeastern county next to Kansas and 
Oklahoma, has a website that recommends camping at Carrizo Canyon Picnic 
Area, so we headed there. At 3 PM we arrived and found no people and only 
three picnic tables for camping, and an outhouse. A sign declared the park 
was closed for camping due to the pandemic, the outhouse locked. What now? 
We hiked the Carrizo one-mile trial in 94-degree heat while thinking what 
to do next. The trail was blocked in two spots due to high water in the 
canyon, but we saw a couple of eastern phoebes as consolation.

 

The sign at Carrizo mentioned in fine print that “dispersed camping” was 
allowed on the Comanche National Grasslands nearby. But the grasslands are 
a patchwork. What is private ranch and what is public grasslands in that 
vast area? You would need a map; but we didn’t have one, nor cell phone 
service or internet.

 

I had read that “primitive camping” was allowed at Cottonwood Canyon, about 
seven miles to the west, and that Cottonwood Canyon had many interesting 
birds, so we decided to camp there, come what may. We are not expert 
campers. We have enjoyed several camping trips to state park campgrounds 
that had a host, picnic tables, fire rings, water, and bathrooms. But 
primitive camping? No host, no picnic table, no fire ring, no water, and no 
bathroom.

 

We felt okay about the prospect of primitive camping except for the 
no-bathroom part, but we did bring a small shovel and toilet paper along 
just in case. I learned on this trip that you’re supposed to dig a hole 
then poop in the hole. You don’t do the opposite—poop then dig the hole. 
Women seem to instinctively understand this. Me—live and learn—I had to 
clean the shovel!

 

We drove down into remote Cottonwood Canyon, miles from nowhere, and saw a 
large sign on the side of the dirt road where the primitive camping was 
supposed to be: “Private Property.” It was riddled with bullet holes. Now 
what to do? The sign did not read “No Camping” so we decided to look for a 
shady spot near Cottonwood Creek that was hidden from the road and take our 
chances in case the sign meant “no camping” after all. Always an adventure!

 

We set up our tent, then relaxed in our camp chairs above the creek. (No 
campfire due to a county ban.) Birds serenaded us one by one, as if on cue: 
canyon wren, yellow warbler, plumbeous vireo, ash-throated flycatcher, 
yellow-breasted chat, blue grosbeak, ladder-backed woodpecker, Chihuahuan 
ravens, Mississippi Kites, mourning doves, and others whose calls or songs 
I couldn’t identify. Then came fireflies blinking in the reeds and all 
around us, then bats twittering next to the canyon walls, then frogs 
thrumming, then distant coyotes yipping, and a couple of hours after 
sunset, the Milky Way and endless stars in the dark sky.

 

It felt remarkable to be in such a remote area only about six hours from 
Denver. Our own wilderness kingdom--no people, litter (well a little, but 
we cleaned it up), traffic, lights, airplane noise, fracking equipment, 
wind farms, phone, internet, Trump news, covid, or covid news. And no 
mountain lions or bears and very few mosquitoes. Felt like paradise.

 

The night was cloudy, but at 11 pm the sky cleared a bit and I took a few 
Milky Way photos then turned in after our long and eventful day.

 

A chilly sunrise at 5:30 am, but at 5 am the dawn chorus of birds started 
and remained in force for over an hour. I think a dozen birds joined in, 
but I believe two competing yellow-breasted chats could create a dawn 
chorus all by themselves. A yellow-billed cuckoo landed on a branch above 
our tent and cuckoo’d for a while before we emerged for the day.

 

After breakfast we drove a 30-mile loop south by a few ranches and saw from 
the road red-headed woodpeckers, a golden eagle, more kites, a northern 
mockingbird, and various sparrows. After a picnic lunch we returned to camp 
to watch rain clouds come in. When the thunder and downpour let up, we 
enjoyed dinner then took a walk along the canyon and creek, hoping to hear 
an owl but settled for seeing a beautiful male summer tanager.

 

Tuesday morning another dawn chorus, this time with an owl and distant cow 

Re: [cobirds] CFO non-discrimination policy and statement now online

[Jay Breidt]

Excellent!  Thank you, CFO.
Sincerely,
Jay Breidt
Fort Collins

On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 10:01 AM Nicholas Komar 
wrote:

> In response to recent events, the Colorado Field Ornithologists Board of
> Directors has adopted a non-descrimination policy (https://
> cobirds.org/CFO.aspx?id=30) and a position statement (
> https://cobirds.org/CFO/News.aspx?id=1196). These are on our website and
> also reproduced here, on behalf of the CFO Board of Directors.
>
> Colorado Field Ornithologists is an organization to bring people to birds
> and to bring birds to people. We do this by encouraging birding as a hobby,
> ornithology as a career, providing a journal, and hosting conventions and
> field trips. We also recognize that the freedom to go birding or to do
> field research without harassment is not one available to all. This
> awareness was highlighted with the recent events in Central Park in New
> York City and the forthright articles published by the National Audubon
> Society and written by Black researchers and birders. CFO wants to ensure
> that all current and future members know that Colorado Field Ornithologists
> welcomes the involvement of all, encourages participation by people of
> color, and values equity and inclusion. Some might say - and indeed have-
> that this topic is too political for CFO but when people of color are
> negatively affected, we must speak out against the injustice and ensure
> that we are addressing any issues in our own state. There is no place in
> this country where racism does not invade and CFO wants to ensure that we
> do our part to improve access to our majestic flora and fauna. Birders and
> ornithologists routinely see and honor the diversity in the bird world and
> CFO embraces the same honoring of the diversity of people. Our nation is at
> a point of reckoning with historic and current racism, a reckoning that is
> long overdue. Our nondiscrimination policy highlights this commitment.
>
> Colorado Field Ornithologists does not and shall not discriminate on the
> basis of race, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender expression, age,
> national origin (ancestry), ability status, citizenship, marital status,
> sexuality, or military status in any of its activities or operations
> including but not limited to the CFO website, journal, Facebook page,
> CObirds, annual convention, field trips, and the CFO Board of Directors. As
> an organization, we are dedicated to practicing inclusion, making our
> programs as widely accessible as possible to any and all in Colorado, and
> adopting organizational practices that actively promote inclusion and
> equity.
>
> Colorado Field of Ornithologists Board of Directors
>
> Nick Komar
> CFO President
> Fort Collins, CO
>
> --
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> 
> .
>

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[cobirds] Re: CFO non-discrimination policy and statement now online

['The "Nunn Guy"' via Colorado Birds]

Hi all

Nicely stated. 

Here are some useful resources about demographics, state of diversity and 
how to engage.

   - https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/document/id/1874 
   (2011, "Birding in the United States: a demographic and economic analysis 
   addendum to the 2011 national survey of fishing, hunting, and 
   wildlife-associated recreation")
   - 
http://vaipl.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ExecutiveSummary-Diverse-Green.pdf 
   (2014, "The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations")
   - 
https://cdn.naaee.org/sites/default/files/eepro/resource/files/diversity_module.9.22.15.pdf
 
   (2015, "Diversity and the Conservation Movement")

Thanks Gary Lefko, Nunn
http://www.friendsofthepawneegrassland.org/



On Wednesday, June 24, 2020 at 10:47:05 AM UTC-6, Dave Cameron wrote:
>
> Hear, hear!
>
>
> Dave Cameron
> Denver
>

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[cobirds] Possible Plumbeous Vireo mate guarding, Hecla Junction, Chaffee

[Charles Hundertmark]

Okay, if you have a Chaffee County list, you probably already have Plumbeous 
Vireo listed. They’re just not that hard to find there, but this behavior was 
interesting. At Hecla Junction Monday, I was attempting to record a singing 
Plumbeous Vireo. I was excited because I had a singing vireo in a pair of 
junipers very close. When you’re recording with a smartphone, getting close to 
the bird can be really important. (For Pluto.Living fans, make that really, 
really, really, really important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D01iBJwXNKQ 
)

As I pointed my Rode external microphone at the spot the vireo song came from, 
I spotted the bird - or thought I did. But the song seemed to be higher up. At 
the same time, I realized there was a softer chattering call. As the bird I was 
watching fed among the low juniper branches I could see it was a Plumbeous 
Vireo. Then higher up, I spotted the singing bird, another Plumbeous Vireo. As 
I watched the birds, it was clear the lower bird was doing the chattering, 
while the upper bird was shadowing the movements of the lower bird. 

Because the human brain is programmed to find patterns whether or not they are 
there, I concluded I  was watching a pair. I suspect the lower bird was the 
female and the chattering was probably providing contact information. The male 
was possibly mate guarding, making sure the female didn’t get distracted by 
another male. Cornell Labs Birds of the World species account notes "Male 
accompanies female closely during nest-building, but does not guard female 
during egg-laying…” 
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/plsvir/cur/behavior#sex 
 If that’s the 
case this pair was probably at the nest building stage. 

The recording of the pair can be found in this eBird checklist 
https://ebird.org/checklist/S70703885 . 
The much softer chatter of what I take to be the female can be heard between 
the louder phrases of the familiar male song. 

I used the word “chatter” to describe the female call because that was the term 
Nathan Pieplow used in the Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Western North 
America. (Isn’t it amazing how many authors of great birding resources we have 
in Colorado?) On the companion website to the field guide, Nathan offers to 
Chatter calls. The first, by Andrew Spencer, most closely matches the call I 
heard. Interestingly, Spencer’s recording also has chatter calls interspersed 
with phrases of the typical male song. This leads me to wonder if Andrew was 
also recording a pair.

Birding just never gets old. In A Guide to Bird Watching, a book that shaped my 
birding path 55 years ago, Joseph J. Hickey wrote of birding, “It is 
unquestionably a hobby that can be thoroughly enjoyed for an entire lifetime.” 
So far, so good.

Chuck Hundertmark
Lafayette, CO


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[cobirds] Re: CFO non-discrimination policy and statement now online

[Dave Cameron]

Hear, hear!


Dave Cameron
Denver

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[cobirds] CFO non-discrimination policy and statement now online

[Nicholas Komar]

In response to recent events, the Colorado Field Ornithologists Board of 
Directors has adopted a non-descrimination policy 
(https://cobirds.org/CFO.aspx?id=30) and a position statement 
(https://cobirds.org/CFO/News.aspx?id=1196). These are on our website and also 
reproduced here, on behalf of the CFO Board of Directors. 

Colorado Field Ornithologists is an organization to bring people to birds and 
to bring birds to people. We do this by encouraging birding as a hobby, 
ornithology as a career, providing a journal, and hosting conventions and field 
trips. We also recognize that the freedom to go birding or to do field research 
without harassment is not one available to all. This awareness was highlighted 
with the recent events in Central Park in New York City and the forthright 
articles published by the National Audubon Society and written by Black 
researchers and birders. CFO wants to ensure that all current and future 
members know that Colorado Field Ornithologists welcomes the involvement of 
all, encourages participation by people of color, and values equity and 
inclusion. Some might say - and indeed have- that this topic is too political 
for CFO but when people of color are negatively affected, we must speak out 
against the injustice and ensure that we are addressing any issues in our own 
state. There is no place in this country where racism does not invade and CFO 
wants to ensure that we do our part to improve access to our majestic flora and 
fauna. Birders and ornithologists routinely see and honor the diversity in the 
bird world and CFO embraces the same honoring of the diversity of people. Our 
nation is at a point of reckoning with historic and current racism, a reckoning 
that is long overdue. Our nondiscrimination policy highlights this commitment. 

Colorado Field Ornithologists does not and shall not discriminate on the basis 
of race, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender expression, age, national 
origin (ancestry), ability status, citizenship, marital status, sexuality, or 
military status in any of its activities or operations including but not 
limited to the CFO website, journal, Facebook page, CObirds, annual convention, 
field trips, and the CFO Board of Directors. As an organization, we are 
dedicated to practicing inclusion, making our programs as widely accessible as 
possible to any and all in Colorado, and adopting organizational practices that 
actively promote inclusion and equity.

Colorado Field of Ornithologists Board of Directors 

Nick Komar
CFO President
Fort Collins, CO

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[cobirds] Brown thrasher pair Rabbit Mountain

[elena]

Previously reported by Ted and Hannah Floyd, the brown thrasher pair was seen 
and heard a little ways up from the picnic shelter by the Rabbit Mountain 
trailhead (Boulder County). I got poor phone camera shots and a recording that 
was audio bombed by a vocal spotted towhee. 

Sent from my iPhone
Elena Holly Klaver
Federally Certified Court Interpreter
Conference Interpreter
English <> Spanish
303 475 5189

Member: American Translators Association
Colorado Translators Association 
Pronouns: she, her, hers

I acknowledge that I live in the territory of Hinóno’éí (Arapaho), Cheyenne and 
Ute Nations, according to the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, and that Colorado’s 
Front Range is home to many Native peoples. Reconozco que vivo en el territorio 
de las naciones Hinóno’éí (Arapaho), Cheyenne y Ute, según el 1851 Tratado de 
Fort Laramie, y que el estado de Colorado al esté de las Montañas Rocosas es 
territorio de muchos pueblos indígenas. 


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