After finishing some yard chores, I spent the afternoon birding and enjoying the fantastic weather in the La Junta area. I was surprised that there weren't any Red-tailed Hawks by the Rocky Ford feedlot, an area that attracts hawks regularly.
Lake Holbrook had 2 Common Loons, a number of Aechmorphorus grebes, several flocks of Eared Grebes, a few Horned Grebes, hundreds of common waterfowl, about 30 Am White Pelicans and distant white-headed gulls. I found a (recently) dead first winter Ring-billed Gull on the shore not far from an empty shot gun shell. Though I can't say for sure that the gull was shot, it is certainly a possibility. As I was leaving I saw a guy in his late teens who appeared to have been shooting on the birds on the lake with a small caliber rifle. I only took a quick look at the west side of Lake Cheraw where I could see a lot of waterfowl on the lake. I didn't have time to check Lakes Meredith or Henry but I saw hundreds (300-400 at least) at the Ordway feedlot as I drove by. I saw at least at least 15 Red-tailed Hawks, all appearing to be light morphs, several Am Kestrals and one Prairie Falcon. The neatest find was a first of the season Merlin on a fencepost out in the grasslands of Crowley County. It was an adult male ( pale but definately gray back) Richardson's. When I got home I found out that Jerry Liguori (author of *Hawks from Every Angle*) had looked at the photos of the hawk I thought was an intermediate morph Red-tailed Hawk intergrade of Western (*calurus) subspecies *and Harlan's (*harlani*) but he thought the hawk was a *calurus *. Kudos to Christian Nunes who also identified it as an intermediate Western. SeEtta Moss Canon City http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
