My family and I went up to look for the Sprague's Pipit that was originally
found by Christian Nunes on Wednesday. The area was really interesting to hike
with multiple different species of grasshoppers for my three year old to chase,
plenty of prairie dogs to listen to, and some bird activity. Got to the top of
the mesa and had no idea where to start looking. Just went in the direction of
Christian's Google Maps placemark. After walking northeast from the fence
corner, I reached the down slope of the mesa and decided it was best to stay on
top and search the shortest grass areas for any bird activity. I was only
finding Western Meadowlarks for most of the trip but when I stepped into the
shortest grasses, they seemed to explode with Horned Larks. This is when I
thought it still possible that the Sprague's Pipit was present.
I stopped at the edge of the short grass and waited hoping for some motion.
Kept getting the occasional meadowlark and kept hearing Horned Larks calling
after ejecting from the prairie grasses. There are darker patches of slightly
longer grass on the top of the mesa and I was hoping these might be a nice spot
for birds to hide from approaching people. This ended up being the case every
time I saw the Sprague's Pipit from then on. My first view of the bird was it
walking out of one of these darker patches of grasses and alighting on top of a
small hill. It watched me for a while as I watched it. Saw the eye ring,
pinkish, pipit beak, overall streakiness, and light side streaking. It seemed
to pop its crest up and down as I watched it like the pictures of Sky Lark in
Sibley's guide. I chased the bird twice more across the shortest grasses where
it every time landed in the darkest, slightly-taller grasses. The bird never
seemed to go in the tall "weedy" grasses at any point. When it flew you could
easily identify the bird by its slightly tubby look, shortish tail, and white
outer tail feathers. I was quite pleased with my looks of the bird, so thanks
go to Christian Nunes for the great find and unexpected lifer for me in my home
county.
Bryan Guarente
Instructional Designer
The COMET Program
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, CO
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