COBirders,
Yesterday, Feb. 14th, Lisa Edwards, Brad Steger and I headed down to southeast Colorado to just poke around a little. We decided to head down via some back roads to look for Short-eared Owls on our way. Shortly after getting off of I-25 and heading east on Hanover Road in southern El Paso county we had a "nightjar" sitting in the middle of the road. Of course as we approached I don't think any of us actually thought it was a nightjar. But then we got closer and had rather good views and it then flew up right in front of us. The bird had what appeared to be a very short tail which points to COMMON POORWILL, which for what we know would be about the only likely suspect. Other features pointed to Common Poorwill also but the one thing that was different for me, was the color of the bird. It was much grayer than I am use to seeing. I would describe it almost being silver looking in the headlights. I am use to browner looking birds. Many years ago Brandon Percival and my wife and I saw a Poorwill on the Penrose CBC. This was in mid-December and the day before it had reached 70 degrees. When we saw that bird it was in the 40s. Yesterday morning it was 20 degrees when we saw this bird. It was sitting on the blacktop presumably soaking up any heat that may have been left from the previous day. I had learned from Bill Maynard many years ago about Poorwills going into a state of "torpor" during cold times. He did a little research for me again today (getting some information from Birds of North America) and because we spoke over the phone about it I do not have the exact details and quotes but there were some very interesting things in the account. The one thing that I do remember is that in Poorwill's southern range they have been found to remain completely inactive on as many as 90% of all winter days. Anyway, onto the other highlights. Near Olney Springs, Crowley county we had EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVES, singing, on nest, eggs in a nest and one nest that had at least 2 youngsters. They were all in a juniper grove and there were two types of nests. One type that was very similar to a Mourning Dove nest and then another type that used much larger sticks. Other things of interest in Crowley County were ~1000 COMMON GOLDENEYE at Lake Henry. Unfortunately, we did not get there until almost dark and could not really pick through them looking for Barrow's Goldeneye and maybe some other goodie. There were a number of COMMON MERGANSERs in teh flock too. There were 500+ gulls flying over teh feedlot near Lake Meredith. All we could see were RING-BILLED GULLs but there certainly could have been some other species. In Otero county our highlights were 5 SANDHILL CRANES between Cheraw and Lake Holbrok, 67 GREATER SCAUP at Lake Holbrok (they were activly diving so I am sure I missed some) and a flock of 8-10 BUSHTITs in the town of Cheraw. I know there have been larger groups of Greater Scaup in Colorado but that is the largest group I have seen in Colorado. In Bent county we tried for the previously reported LeConte's Sparrow without luck. Many thanks to Duane for joining us and helping us look for the bird. We did have both LINCOLN'S SPARROWs and SWAMP SPARROWs. Nowhere near the number of Lincoln's and Swamp that have been previously reported though. Probably do to teh changing conditions of teh channel. Duane also showed us some AMERICAN WHITE PELICANs, migrants. Not much else that was viewable on teh lake. Except of course the ~10,000 white geese which is a 1/6 the number that was there in December. The EASTERN TOWHEE continues at the previous reported location near Road JJ and 16. We also had a male EVENING GROSBEAK at the Las Animas Cemetery. All in all it was a great day. ----- Mark Peterson Colorado Springs --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
