Today Ted Cooper and I made a run out to the northeast. Based on some of Bill Kaempfer's comments at the end of last week, we added a few stops with mixed but mostly good results.
Logan Co. 93 south of I-76 Bill reported some P-chix along the road so we decided to give it a try. Alas, no prairie-chickens, but the road, especially around the farmhouse about five miles south was quite birdy. No rarities, but lots of lark buntings, g-hopper sparrows, lark sparrows and chippers. Also Say's phoebe, mockingbird, lots of kestrels, red-tails and Swainson's. Speaking of which, it seemed that every utility pole had its own buteo today. We must have seen over a hundred over the course of the day. Julesburg Elementary School Here Bill had reported hummers in the aguawhachit.....the accacallit.....oh hell, the whatever flowers. First, let me say that I have a history of run-ins with the authorities on birding outings. I once managed to get stopped by the police on Brandon Percival's street in Pueblo West for "impeding traffic"....in spite of the fact that only cars on the street were our birders and the cop.....who apparently resented being impeded. But I digress. Ted and I walked down the street, carefully avoiding the school grounds proper. Not good enough. The sheriff appeared and after requesting ID and completing a compete full-cavity body search, told us never to return or he'd shoot us. Well, actually he was quite polite, but suggested that we do our birding somewhere other than around elementary schools. I respectfully pass along his suggestion for others who might venture out there..... Once we got out of Dodge, we headed down to Little Jumbo (or Red Lion, or whatever). Here Bill had mentioned checking the marsh below the dam, so we thought we'd give it a try. This turns out to be an excellent spot, which I had never tried before. Go to the parking area at the crest of the first hill at LJ/RL Res. and follow the road toward the dam. Take the mowed path that goes off a bit to the right and disappears into a cottonwood/Russian olive thicket. From here there is a combination of path and boardwalk that makes for some excellent birding. We found the three Bell's vireos Bill mentioned, plus yellow warbler, redstart, brown thrasher, red-headed woodpecker, western wood-pewee, kingfisher and many other commoners. Jumbo was jumpin'. The shorebird numbers were modest, but the variety was very good. In addition to a lot of Baird's and least, we had both yellowlegs, ten marbled godwit, a black-bellied plover, dozens of Wilson's phalaropes, one dowitcher (distant, presumably long-billed), a long-billed curlew (which we called a juvenile, based on shorter, less decurved bill than adult) and some avocets. There were black and Forster's terns, western and one Clark's grebe, and two basic plumaged common loons. Prewitt Prewitt was pretty much as it has been described over the past couple of weeks. A couple thousand Baird's, good numbers of least, and few other peeps. We had to dig really hard to come up with one semi-palmated sandpiper, and couldn't find a convincing western, though there are probably some out there. There were dozens of black terns loafing on the flats with the shorebirds and Franklin's gulls, including a lot of juveniles. The best additions here were one red-necked phalarope in the dozens of Wilson's, two juvenile pectoral sandpipers, one spotty and one California gull. We did not have time to check the woodlands for land birds, and with 90+ degree temps at the time, I don't imagine we would have found much. NOTE: I recently posted some encouragement those who feel so inclined to donate a few birds to WILD bird, the rehab outfit. they are having a picnic/get acquainted outing at Prospect Park on the Wheatridge Greenbelt this Saturday, beginning at 8:00 AM and running until noon or so. Please stop by and meet these great folks, and maybe throw a dollar or two in the bucket. Yours truly has volunteered to lead a birdwalk around the park, and I'd love to see a few Cobirders there. Good birding to all, Norm Norm Lewis Lakewood, CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/8D06CF87107A97B-1998-65863%40webmail-d286.sysops.aol.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
