Hello, Birders. Andrew and I did a southeastern Colorado road trip the past 3 days, Saturday-Monday, August 8-10, 2009. Our birding highlights included 50+ Snowy Plovers and a Piping Plover at Cheraw Lake, multiple Upland Sandpipers, Least Tern, a magnificent Greater Roadrunner, an intriguing *flock* of Northern Mockingbirds, Black-throated Sparrow, and Dickcissel. Shorebirding was great at Cheraw Lake and decent along County Road G east of Ordway, but pretty poor elsewhere. Details: 8/8/09, Lincoln Co., Limon. Great-tailed Grackles, Eurasian Collared-Doves, House Sparrows; human tourists and travelers; McDonald's; etc. 8/8/09, Lincoln Co., roadside playa, 39.142N, -103.699W. Just a few Killdeer and several Baird's Sandpipers. This spot has that sorta golden-plover-and-Buff-breasted look about it; might be worth keeping an eye on. 8/8/09, Crowley Co., roadside pond, 38.478N, -103.702W. A Western Wood-Pewee was an early migrant. Chipping Sparrows, Lark Sparrows, and Lark Buntings were plentiful, as they would be pretty much everywhere. (Especially Lark Sparrows.) 8/8/09, Crowley Co., County Road G. This is the road from Ordway to Lake Meredith, and it has to be one of the most unsavory places in Colorado, with foul feedlots on the north side of the road, fouler sewage ponds on the south, and great swarms of flies that get into your car and stay there; with the 100-degree temps, the place was positively hadean. It is also like something out of Deliverance. Decent for shorebirds, though, with 2 Semipalmated Plovers, 18 Black-necked Stilts, 6 Marbled Godwits, and other species. Also a few White-faced Ibises and a Forster's Tern. And 850+ mangled, molting, worn, and frazzled Franklin's Gulls--just perfect, I suppose, for somebody who relishes the prospect of searching for a Laughing Gull in the most miserable conditions imaginable. (If you are such a person, you can get help.) Prime conditions at 38.214N, -103.725W. 8/8/09, Otero Co., Rocky Ford. As soon as we pulled into town, 8 Mississippi Kites, a Chimney Swift, and a Black-chinned Hummingbird. 8/8/09, Otero Co., La Junta. Mississippi Kites still tending a nest; a little late for that? 8/9/09, Otero Co., Ja Junta. In the middle of the night, at least 3--and probably more like 5 or 6--Upland Sandpipers passing over. One even tossed in a partial "wolf whistle" for good measure. Awesome. Maybe the birds had gotten caught up in an overnight windshift; by 2:45, winds were out of the northeast, with clouds rolling in. 8/9/09, Bent Co., Road Canyon. Cool and overcast, with an east wind much of the morning. Kinda slow down there, but it was nice to find birds that rarely if ever show up in the northern Front Range region--stuff like 16 Cassin's Kingbirds, 3 Chihuahuan Ravens, 1 Bewick's Wren, 7 Curve-billed Thrashers, and 7 Canyon Towhees. A fair bit of singing by Cassin's Sparrows and Blue Grosbeaks, but, otherwise, the birds were pretty quiet. Oh, except for some high-flying Baird's Sandpipers; they sure seemed out of place amid the chollas, junipers, and rimrocks. A Western Tanager was a presumed migrant. 8/9/09, Otero Co., Higbee Valley Road (CR 804). We had several cool birds here, including: --a woadwunnuh, as Andrew called it. According to Duane Nelson, Greater Roadrunner has been very rare in Colorado since the blizzards of 2006-2007. So if anybody wants to go looking, the bird (it's an adult) was at 37.71784N, -103.51764W. --at least 60 Northern Mockingbirds, including a full-on flock of 30. We flushed the "flock," and the birds flew, all together, a distance of at least 100 feet. I'd never seen--I've never even heard of--anything like that with mockingbirds. --1 Black-throated Sparrow. They breed in the general region, of course, but I'm not aware that they'd been previously detected right here. (Anybody know?) --the "usual suspects," for example, Mississippi Kite, Cassin's Kingbird, Curve-billed Thrasher, and Canyon Towhee. 8/9/09, Otero Co., Cheraw Lake. Shorebirds galore! We watched from the west side (from Highway 109), where we saw 50+ Snowy Plovers, 4 Semipalmated Plovers, 1 Piping Plover, 20+ Black-necked Stilts, 350+ Semipalmated Sandpipers, 1,000+ Baird's Sandpipers, 75+ Stilt Sandpipers, 1 Long-billed Dowitcher, 2 unidentified dowitchers, and 2,500+ Wilson's Phalaropes. (Small numbers of both yellowlegs, Western & Least Sandpipers, Spotted Sandpiper, Killdeer, etc.) Lots of ducks, grebes, Franklin's Gulls, Black Terns, etc., too. I think Andrew and I just scraped the tip of the iceberg at Cheraw, as we didn't even try for the birds on the north side of the lake. 8/9/09, Otero Co., Holbrook Reservoir. Lots of water, basically no shorebirds. But we did see 2 Great Egrets, 1 Snowy Egret, and a bunch of Black Terns. I can easily picture an "interesting" piscivore wandering here in the next few weeks... 8/10/09, Bent Co., John Martin Reservoir. Weird weather--a stiff ENE wind, blowing dust, and galloping clouds. From the dam, we saw a Willet, a flyby Upland Sandpiper, a Least Tern, 60+ Black Terns, and a Dickcissel. There were immense numbers of Aechmophorus grebes and American White Pelicans out on the lake proper, which is typical, I imagine, for this time of the year. Elsewhere around the reservoir, we found White-faced Ibis, Virginia Rail, American Coot, a smattering of expected shorebird species, Hairy Woodpecker, Eastern Kingbird, Loggerhead Shrike, Blue Grosbeak, and Great-tailed Grackle. 8/10/09, Pueblo Co., Pueblo Rest Area, NB I-25 MP 114.99. Here we saw two Brewer's Blackbirds licking coolant from the parked cars. County lifebird! As Pueblo County is the ne plus ultra of Colorado birding, I am ecstatic to report that my county list is now up to a whopping, eBird-compliant 44 species! Van and Brandon are no doubt quaking in their boots... -------------------------------
Ted Floyd [email protected] Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado ------------------------------- Ted Floyd Editor, Birding ------------------------------- Please support the American Birding Association: Click on http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=884482 to search the internet. Check out the American Birding Association on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22934255714 Check out the American Birding Association on Twitter: http://twitter.com/abaoutreach Please visit the website of the American Birding Association: http://www.aba.org _________________________________________________________________ Get your vacation photos on your phone! http://windowsliveformobile.com/en-us/photos/default.aspx?&OCID=0809TL-HM --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
