This story is too coincidental to be believed - but here goes anyway. My wife and I are driving from Woodland Park, along Hwy 24 (down Ute Pass) to Colorado Springs. This time of year, the leaves are off the many narrow-leaf cottonwoods that line the middle of the pass that drops about 1,200' between Cascade and Manitou Springs. Hwy 24, east and west-bound lanes, is split by a strong creek (Fountain Creek) that flows throughout winter and dotted with cottonwood groves. I made the comment to my wife, just thinking out loud, 'you would think that in 23 years of travelling this pass, with the habitat appearing to be great for northern pygmy-owl, we would have seen one just once while driving up and down'. We went on justifying the obvious reasons; small bird; paying attention to the curving mountain road without a real chance for seeing birds; perhaps they don't care for the constant din of traffic on the highway; etc. Well you know how this story is going to end now - so here it is; then, while going about 50 mph, less than a mile from the western-most Manitou Springs exit (while driving east), I look up and exclaim to my wife - 'Did you see that?!' Of course she did not. So, I drove to the first exit, turned around and went back; another U-turn a quarter mile past the sighting - and there it was. We pulled off about a half mile down and walked back with binos in hand. There it sat, giving us great looks! It did not vocalize during the 10 minutes we watched.
Exact location of NOPO http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8 <http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=2099156213995985334 98.000499fd7a0db3e4e05d4&ll=38.875624,-104.931664&spn=0.004636,0.00854&t=h&z =17> &hl=en&msa=0&msid=209915621399598533498.000499fd7a0db3e4e05d4&ll=38.875624,- 104.931664&spn=0.004636,0.00854&t=h&z=17 Jeff J Jones ( <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]) Teller County - 8500' - Montane Woodlands -- 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.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
