John Vanderpoel, Todd Deininger and I set out today to bird Weld and Morgan Counties in spite of the weather, and well, the weather never put up much of an objection.
We started out by heading up I-25 to CO 14 and going east toward Crow Valley. Along the way we stopped at the intersection of CO 14 and WC 51 for the Mountain Plovers previously noted by Rachel Hopper. Crwo Valley itself was somewhat disappointing with Boy Scout campers out numbering birds of interest by a ratio of about 25 to 1. Nevertheless, Murphy's pasture produced lots of sparrows including Brewer's, both longspurs and a Solitary Sandpiper. >From there we headed to Jackson State Park. Who (of us veteran birders) would ever have thought that Jackson State Park might be described as under-birded? But reports these days are few and far between. Remember that it is only about 30 minutes or so to go cross country from Crow Valley to Jackson! Our first stop at Jackson was the boat ramp peninsula on the west side where we had interesting gulls and grebes. But, when we did our U-turn to return to the "mainland" what should be blocking our way but a Piping Plover! I was particularly pleased at this turn of events as Piping Plover just happened at that moment to become my 400th Colorado Life Bird. Perhaps this happy turn of events made the plover decide to skirt around my Escape and leave our path open for a return to terra firma, but the fun wasn't over. As we continued up the west side of Jackson, we fought our way through lots and lots of sparrows, one of which was a distinctive Field Sparrow-one of four spizella on the day. In the woods around the visitor center we also had a Harris's Sparrow which even sang for us. >From Jackson, we headed back toward the west and decided to make a diversion toward Riverside Reservoir. Unfortunately, since it is impossible to see Riverside Reservoir from public lands, no one ever goes there. That makes a good deal of sense, doesn't it? Well, not really since the road over the Platte River and then on the east side is lined with all sorts of neat marshes and small ponds. We did find one Greater Scaup a handful of Willets and a late Common Goldeneye back there along with lots of other pleasing but not particularly noteworthy stuff. The Latham area is not to be missed right now. A Forster's tern on the east Latham spit was new for the day as was a Semi-palmated Plover and Marbled Godwit at "Montfort Marsh" (that's what we call the place about a mile northeast of Loloff). Tom L. called our attention to a pair of Stilt Sandpipers along WC 48, and the pond south of WC 46 on WC 45 must have had close to 500 shorebirds present (really not to be missed), including Least, Semi-palmated and Western Sandpiper and more than 100 Long-billed Dowitchers. (No Dunlin found). More good viewing along WC 40 and 42. Finally we made our way home to turkeys in Platteville and Snowy and Great Egrets here and there to wind up a 125 species day all in Weld and Morgan Counties. Bill Kaempfer Boulder --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
