[cobirds] SE Colorado Birding 5/10
Joe might do Mother's Day in Phillips County, but I try to head SE on this weekend. Here are some highlights from today-Limon to La Junta the long way. The day featured wave after wave of sparrows-mainly Chipping and Lark, but also one or two to many of Grasshopper, Vesper, Brewer's, Clay-colored, White-crowned and Song. In Limon, the wetlands at the east end of town were particularly good. The signal was a Northern Waterthrush right after you walk under the RR tracks. I counted 135 Wilson's Phalaropes on the far pond and also had Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and Clay-colored Sparrow. Kit Carson (town not county) had 127 more Wilson's Phalaropes (I kept counting in hopes of Red-necked, none found, but I got over 400 Wilson's for the day), and Eared Grebe and Swainson's Thrush. South of town on the old road I had Bullock's Oriole and a spotty Summer Tanager. County Hall in Eads was absent of anything other than House Sparrows and Great-tailed Grackles. That was a disappointment for a place that usually produces one or two interesting things. Elsewhere in town, however, I found a White-winged Dove. Going into Nee Noshe I had to beat off the sparrows, but the lake itself is drying up. Nee Gronde was well stocked with shorebirds-about a dozen species including Willet, 7 Black-bellied Plover, one Snowy Plover, Baird's, Least, Semi-palmated Sandpiper, etc. Also FOS Black Terns for me. When I got to Tempel Grove it was raining and very windy, so birding there was not particularly productive. I did get a Swainson's Thrush. Maybe tomorrow I'll try again. Adobe Creek is lower than I've ever seen it and no longer fun to bird. But I did have seven Chihuahuan Ravens on the way in and four Scaled Quail on the way out. 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
[cobirds] SE Colorado Birding--great even with out a Caracara
Tom Wilberding, Todd Deininger and I headed down to Bent County yesterday to try for Crested Caracara. Alas, when we arrived at about 6:30 on Friday evening, Steve Larson was there saying that he had last glimpsed the bird briefly over 150 minutes earlier. (Minutes will continue to be important.) We persisted for many more minutes, but eventually got hungry and went on to Lamar where we stayed the night. This morning we were back again at Bent Co Rd. 26.5 at a bit after 7:00; no Caracara in sight, so after several minutes we left for John Martin (Bent). That was a good choice so as we found a about a dozen Greater Yellowlegs and a Lesser, couple of Least Terns on a spit on the north side of the reservoir plus lots of goodies at Hasty campground (Bent) including a Green Heron, about 8 Great Egrets, a single Solitary Sandpiper and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Back for another Caracara try-no luck. Even though the crowd had swelled to about a dozen birders, we were frozen in idle conversation. One of us was worried about gas, so we decided to head back to Lamar. After a few minutes, we were looking at a Cassin's Sparrow when my phone rang-Mark Peterson, followed in less than a minute by Doug Faulkner-It's there. So we raced back. Well, Tom was driving, so raced was not the word, and a few minutes later we arrived. Alas, it was gone over the hill. We then spent quite a few minutes on a circumnavigation of the block in which the bird was last spotted, only minutes before. Several stops, much searching, no bird (although I counted 125 American Avocets and about 40 Black-necked Stilts on Verhoeff Res). We got back Rd. 26.5 and waited for many minutes until now our gang was hungry and seriously out of gas. So, we returned back to Lamar for lots of Mississippi Kites, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo calling at Lamar Community College and lunch. At that point we were enough minutes from home to lead us to start heading back. Some stops along the way home: Thurston Res. (Prowers) was pretty normal. Neenoshe Res. (Kiowa) was spectacular. We counted 59 (!) Long-billed Curlews, 40 (!) Snowy Plovers along with a couple dozen Baird's Sandpipers and a few hundred Wilson's Phalaropes. Nearby at Neegronde Res. (Kiowa) contrary to current weather conditions there was a wintery combination of 3 Snow Geese and 5 Bonaparte's Gulls along with 4 Franklin's Gulls. On to Eads (Kiowa) for another Mississippi Kite. Finally to Flagler SWA (Kit Carson) for another calling Yellow-billed Cuckoo and then Flagler itself for another Mississippi Kite. So no Crested Caracara but lots of Curlews, Kites and Cuckoos and clearly the return of fall shorebird migration. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Colorado Birds group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
[cobirds] SE Colorado Birding
CO Birders : Spent the last three days atlasing in Otero and Las Animas counties south of La Junta and some of the highlights as follows : Saturday 5/28 : Otero County : Picket Wire Canyon trail to the cemetery , singing first spring Summer Tanager ( coordinates N 38 deg 32' 26 , W 104 deg 27' 56 ) , Orchard Orioles ( family group , adult male , 1 first year male , adult female , ) , both these species in the riparian areas along the Purgatoire River , Black-throated Sparrows , and all of the PJ specialities except Gray Vireo and Scott's Oriole . Sunday 5/29 ; Las Animas County : County Road 177.9 , Reed Canyon , 3-4 Hepatic Tanagers , County Road 177.9 just north of May Ranch , Long-billed Curlew single adult feeding on grasshoppers in the very arid grasslands , County road 177.9 at Villegreen , Ferruginous Hawk with 3 fledglings almost ready to fly although what the adults are finding in the area to feed them is a mystery , dead cows ?? , County Road 197.6 bottom of Long Canyon 2 miles from CO 109 , 2-3 Gray Vireos ( same location described by Duane Nelson as last year ) . Like Duane I am puzzled why the Gray vireos like this location and none of my atlas blocks with very similar habitat. In general all grassland species are scarce because of the severe drought , and PJ species are active early until around 10 AM when they shut up for the rest of the day. John Drummond Monument currently in La Junta. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Colorado Birds group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
[cobirds] SE Colorado Birding 4/10
I continued my birding in SE Colorado today, essentially circumnavigating the Wood Thrush Grove Fire. Lots of spring birds, but I found it interesting that I missed several species that are being seen further north. From La Junta I drove south to Kim and then east to Cottonwood Canyon. That very special place was still really windy this morning (winds died off as the day wore on and I progressed to the north) and I found a couple of Eastern Phoebes along with Canyon Towhees, Say's Phoebes and a Bewick's Wren. There were Wild Turkey's in display at almost every stop. Crossing the Comanche Grasslands I saw several arriving Vesper Sparrows, and even a few partially molted Lark Buntings. Is April 10th not an unusually early arrival date for our State Bird even in the south east most part of the state? I headed up to Lamar and the CC Woods where, while there were no eastern specialties (e.g., cardinal, red-headed or bellied woodpeckers or brown thrasher) evident to me in my visit, I did note with pleasure several singing and alternate-molted male Audubon's Warblers around. A visit to Thurston Reservoir was amply birdy-but it seemed to be all potential breeders! Nee Noshe had hoards of Northern Shovelers plus lots of American Avocets and Baird's Sandpipers. I counted 8 Snowy Plovers plus a Semi-palmated Sandpiper and, among song birds, a Chestnut-collared Longspur and a Savannah Sparrow. Finally on the way home I stopped at the waste water pond in Kit Carson. Todd Deininger's Canada Geese had departed, but I wasn't disappointed that the only birds near the water were a pair of Black-necked Stilts. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Colorado Birds group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
[cobirds] SE Colorado Birding
Todd Deininger and I braved the weather and ventured out for a mid-May trip to Southeast Colorado this weekend. We ended up with 157 trip species, a 122 species day on Saturday and a 120 species day on our return yesterday. Sorry for the late report, but I was off line during the trip and too tired to report last night. Friday afternoon we headed out from Boulder to Las Animas pushing flock after flock of Lark Buntings out of our way as we proceeded. We ended up swinging east toward Adobe Creek Reservoir where we had a Snowy Plover, and in fact never birded as far west as La Junta the entire trip. On Saturday we started with the bird trail behind Bent's Fort Inn which had at least two Northern Waterthrushes and a singing American Redstart. We continued to Temple Grove where we found two more Waterthurshes, a Black-and-White Warbler and a Broad-winged Hawk. Intermediate stops-i.e., Thurston and Poulsen's were good birdy stops. Lamar CC Woods produced Northern Cardinal, an Ovenbird and another Redstart as well as a soaring Mississippi Kite for us. We continued south to Two Buttes where at the last pond to the east we found a Chestnut-sided Warbler and another Black-and-White as well as an Ash-throated Flycatcher. The remaining water behind the Two Buttes dam had several shorebird species including a pair of Stilt Sandpipers. At that point we decided to shoot between two major storms on the horizon and head toward Kim with an eye on Cottonwood Canyon if we could get around the storm on our left. (It must have been a doozie as I noticed that the next morning the Weather Channel was showing viewer clips from Campo!) Things seemed to be clearing off, so we went ahead and veered south toward Cottonwood where we were rewarded but not without major work. Cottonwood was teeming with expected specialities of the aread after the storm, but most notable was a collection of eleven Mississippi Kites all perched in two or three trees. From there we crawled (almost literally at less than 10 MPH on the mud slick roads) to Kim where we found the Cassin's Kingbird capital of Colorado-the out-numbered the Western Kingbirds. A sharp Lazuli Bunting provided some color change. Sunday we headed back to Lamar CC in the morning where we added Red-bellied Woodpecker, then back to Temple Grove via Thurston where we had a single Cattle Egret. On Sunday we added Blackpoll Warbler and another American Redstart plus the continued presence of Broad-winged Hawk, At Nee Noshe Reservoir a flock of peeps produced about a dozen White-rumped Sandpipers mixed in with Baird's, Western and Semi-palmated Sandpipers as well as several Snowy Plover and Semi-palmated Plovers. (See also Mark Miller's report as we ran into him while there.) Three more great birds awaited us as we headed home. On a lark we stopped at the courthouse in Eads as it looked like the most reasonable place to bird and found a Northern Parula. Just south of Kit Carson in Cheyenne County where the bridge is being replaced on the old highway from the south we had a pair of Bell's Vireos in the transit and finally when a detour off US 285 sent us through Lincoln County we decided to take a look at Kinney Lake and found a nifty Bobolink right as we turned off CR 109 toward the lake. I can't wait until this weekend for the CFO Convention for more good birding company, long days and, oh yes, great birds. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Colorado Birds group. To post to this group, send email to cobi...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
[cobirds] SE Colorado Birding
Well, I only get one day for spring break, so I try to make the most of it with a long weekend. I usually like to tell my fashion conscious friends that I went to Trinidad, but this year I didn't make it, although I did get to Las Animas County twice! I started off on Friday by heading out toward La Junta. For me this is duck season, not some time in the fall when you can shoot them! And ducks were the order of the day, well the whole weekend. Henry, Meredith, Holbrook, Cheraw, Adobe Creek, Thurston, Maria, Orlando--ducks, ducks and more ducks. Lots of Ruddys and Canvasbacks; a fair smattering of both scaup when I wanted to put the effort into them, Cinnamon and Blue-winged Teal joining their less migratory Green-winged cousins. All the other dabblers and divers, too. Not too much that was odd, but I though it stood out that at Lake Hasty there were three ducks--two Red-breasted and one Hooded Merganser. Saturday was not the most pleasant--and dirt roads took it out of me all weekend long--but it was still neat to see about 2,500 Sandhills around Thurston and Nee Noshe. Wandering down to Carrizo Canyon was a disappointment as there was not a single bird to be found. Perhaps 50 MPH winds were to blame. Finally today I made it to La Veta where Beverly Jansen delivered big time with lots of rosies including at least a half dozen spanking Blacks and a few Gray-crowned (most were Browned-capped). The town was full of Evening Grosbeaks, too, everywhere! I hope all of you had good birding this weekend, too. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Colorado Birds group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words REMOVE ME as the subject.
