Tom Wilberding, Todd Deininger and I headed down to Bent County yesterday to try for Crested Caracara. Alas, when we arrived at about 6:30 on Friday evening, Steve Larson was there saying that he had last glimpsed the bird briefly over 150 minutes earlier. (Minutes will continue to be important.) We persisted for many more minutes, but eventually got hungry and went on to Lamar where we stayed the night.
This morning we were back again at Bent Co Rd. 26.5 at a bit after 7:00; no Caracara in sight, so after several minutes we left for John Martin (Bent). That was a good choice so as we found a about a dozen Greater Yellowlegs and a Lesser, couple of Least Terns on a spit on the north side of the reservoir plus lots of goodies at Hasty campground (Bent) including a Green Heron, about 8 Great Egrets, a single Solitary Sandpiper and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Back for another Caracara try-no luck. Even though the crowd had swelled to about a dozen birders, we were frozen in idle conversation. One of us was worried about gas, so we decided to head back to Lamar. After a few minutes, we were looking at a Cassin's Sparrow when my phone rang-Mark Peterson, followed in less than a minute by Doug Faulkner-"It's there." So we raced back. Well, Tom was driving, so "raced" was not the word, and a few minutes later we arrived. Alas, it was gone over the hill. We then spent quite a few minutes on a circumnavigation of the block in which the bird was last spotted, only minutes before. Several stops, much searching, no bird (although I counted 125 American Avocets and about 40 Black-necked Stilts on Verhoeff Res). We got back Rd. 26.5 and waited for many minutes until now our gang was hungry and seriously out of gas. So, we returned back to Lamar for lots of Mississippi Kites, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo calling at Lamar Community College and lunch. At that point we were enough minutes from home to lead us to start heading back. Some stops along the way home: Thurston Res. (Prowers) was pretty normal. Neenoshe Res. (Kiowa) was spectacular. We counted 59 (!) Long-billed Curlews, 40 (!) Snowy Plovers along with a couple dozen Baird's Sandpipers and a few hundred Wilson's Phalaropes. Nearby at Neegronde Res. (Kiowa) contrary to current weather conditions there was a wintery combination of 3 Snow Geese and 5 Bonaparte's Gulls along with 4 Franklin's Gulls. On to Eads (Kiowa) for another Mississippi Kite. Finally to Flagler SWA (Kit Carson) for another calling Yellow-billed Cuckoo and then Flagler itself for another Mississippi Kite. So no Crested Caracara but lots of Curlews, Kites and Cuckoos and clearly the return of fall shorebird migration. 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]. 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.
