I returned today from a three day tour of west central Colorado. It has become one of my goals to try to visit every county in Colorado annually, and now I also try to add a new county bird in each of our 64 counties annually. This weekend was my chance to do the I-70 corridor and return more or less in the next tier of counties to the south. Weather was not ideal, but manageable with the worst conditions being a misty fog over Vail Pass on the way west on Friday.
Heading out I visited Harvey and Rifle Gap State Parks in Garfield County. Neither of these has ever seemed to hold very many birds for me, but Harvey had one and Rifle had two alternate Common Loons. Continuing on to Mesa County, I decided to imitate our County Birding web site and cover ground from NW to SE, at least for the ground that I covered. Old 6 and 50 isn't much of a reservoir, but in the desert I guess "who's counting". It was not too far out of the way and had a few birds on its few teaspoons of water including a single Wilson's Phalarope. Highline Reservoir wasn't too much better with not too much more than a few Western Grebes. On Saturday Walker SWA in Grand Junction had lots of Gambel's Quail, single Orange-crowned Warbler, a Black-necked Stilt and a small flock of Least Sandpipers (I learned on this trip to enjoy every shorebird and gull that presented itself). The Whitewater gravel ponds held lots of Tree Swallows and my first Cliffs of the year, but not too much else. I tried three different journeys to the SW off US 50 before I got to Delta. None produced the Black Phoebe that I sought, but all were nice drives. On the third into Escalante Canyon I got as far as another Walker SWA-the one with the 1911 house. There I had Lark Sparrows and Western Scrub Jays, but no Black Phoebes. After poking around Delta to little effect I went on to Fruitgrowers Reservoir-finally a western body of water in full feather. Highlights there were a Glossy Ibis amid many, many White-faced, a Snowy Plover, five or six Marbled-Godwits and a couple of Willets. I heard but did not see a couple of Sandhill Cranes and the reservoir was littered with grebes, ducks, herons etc. From there I proceeded to Bethlehem Cemetery in Paonia-I can see why Jason Beeson likes it so much. There I found Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Evening Grosbeaks, but the day was no nice by that time that most of the other things Jason had been reporting had moved on to their final destinations or just shut up. So I moved on, too; to Spring Park Reservoir where I met up with Dick Filby for a terrific hour + of birding. Some complain about the lack of access to this place, but in the late afternoon on a calm day it's not so bad, especially when it is full of birds as it always seems to be at this time of year including massive numbers of Barrow's Goldeneyes-massive, that is, for anyone other than a local. Dick already gave a full account, so I won't repeat. Saturday night I stayed in Eagle and then off to Lake county via Minturn in the morning. Not a bad place, Minturn for some feeder birds here and there. Best were more Evening Grosbeaks. Lake County was really cold, but interesting for the Trumpeter Swan that seems to be unable to leave these high county lakes. Today it was in the eastern part of the western twin of Twin Lakes (is that clear enough?) Also present were two of the grumpiest looking White Faced Ibis that I've ever seen-but I don't think they were thrilled at being at 10,000 feet in 30 degree blustery winds. A huge flock of a couple hundred (probable) Western Grebes (well that's not huge by Union Reservoir standards, but this wasn't Union Reservoir) looked like they were trying to sleep off a long migration into the same substandard accommodations as the Ibis. Home via Clear Creek and Gilpin produced the odd duck but nothing else. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- 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] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en
