CO birders, I thought I might have had at least this weekend's record for miles traveled until I read Christian's post... Oh well. I started Friday after work by driving from Colorado Springs to Granada and camping out. Saturday started with meeting Fred Dorenkamp and a group from High Lonesome Birding Tours at 4:20 am for the Arena Dust Lesser Prairie-Chicken tour. We had about 8 displaying males about 120 meters or so away from the bus. A couple female Northern Harriers harassed them a bit and they flew to within 80 meters once before returning to their original area. Big fun! I highly recommend the trip if you haven't done it (I have no financial or other connection to Arena Dust Tours). Other birds included a Rough-legged Hawk, a couple Red-tails, several Ring-necked Pheasants, a gazillion Horned Larks, quite a few Meadowlarks (no Easterns or Lilian's that I could discern), and various expected others.
The next stop was Lamar Community College Woods where I refound several previously posted birds including 3 Red-bellied Woodpeckers, 1 female Cardinal, a Brown Thrasher, a Lincoln's Sparrow, and a Downy Woodpecker. I also saw a pair of Wood Ducks, and tons of Red-winged Blackbirds, Robins, Mourning Doves, Eurasian Collared-Doves, and Starlings. I was skunked on the eastern White-breasted Nuthatches. Along Hwy 50 were fields loaded with Ring-billed and Franklin's Gulls, Brewer's Blackbirds, Northern Harriers, and others, including an Osprey perched on a pole about a mile from John Martin Res. Having never really birded this area, I also drove up to Bent's Old Fort and can see why I need to come back for Black Rail sometime... maybe during the Bent County Historic and Birding Tours on May 15 & 16. The next big stop was the Pueblo Lake State Wildlife Area with a pair of Scaled Quail, a friendly pair of Sage Thrashers, and lots of Say's Phoebes. This side of the lake had a few American White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and Mallards, with one female Common Merganser, one lonely Ring-billed Gull on the water and a Pied-billed Grebe trying to swallow a Crappie that was at least twice as wide as his head. He gave up eventually. The most abundant birds were Aechmophorus grebes, which were everywhere. I confirmed one Clark's out of all the Westerns. I found another Osprey in the canyon above Canon City before climbing over Monarch pass in the snow. Deciding against camping in the snow, I found a nice little motel in Gunnison and was once again up at 4:00 and out to the Waunita lek for Gunnison Sage-Grouse before 5 am. The snow kept the numbers down but I saw 2 pairs and a lone male from my vantage for a total of 5. Folks in the trailer reported 6 and 7 males and 1 female, so there might have been a total of 10 birds. Done by 8 am, I finished the day skiing at Monarch on their last day with 7 inches of fresh powder, but not before seeing a pair of Pine Grosbeaks just west of the top of the pass. Two lifers and a powder day... pretty good weekend, I'd say. Chip Clouse Outreach Coordinator Birders' Exchange Coordinator American Birding Association 4945 N 30th Street, Suite 200 Colorado Springs, CO 80919-3151 _________________________________________________ Phone: (719) 884-8240 Toll-free: (800) 850-2473 x240 Fax: (719) 578-1480 _________________________________________________ Email: [email protected] Website: www.aba.org <http://www.aba.org> Please support the American Birding Associaton: Click on http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=884482 <http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=884482> to search the internet. Every search provides support to the ABA's programs in Education, Conservation, and Publications. P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Join us at the 2009 Convention in Alamosa: http://cfo-link.org/convention/index.php 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.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
