Hello, Birders.
With Chris Pague and Mike Figgs, I spent the past three
days, Friday-Sunday, May 23-25 at the Lazy UO Ranch, Las Animas County, a
PRIVATE holding of The Nature Conservancy in Colorado.
On the drive down on Friday morning, Chris and I saw a
beautiful SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER just south of milepost 61 along the west
side
of Highway 71, Lincoln County. And on the way back up this Sunday afternoon, we
saw a lethargic YELLOW-THROATED VIREO where Horse Creek crosses Lincoln County
road M off Highway 71 near milepost 60. So a nice mile of highway there.
But I said we were at the Lazy UO Ranch, so more about that
now.
The ranch is an amazing place, with nearly five miles of Carrizo
Creek meandering through the property. At one point on Saturday morning, we
heard and audio-recorded a WHITE-EYED VIREO, followed quickly by a RED-EYED
VIREO, and then a gorgeous INDIGO BUNTING and a loudly declaiming SUMMER
TANAGER. So it's a neat place for quote-unquote rare birds. But we were mainly
there to document use of the ranch by canyon country birds. Here are some of
the totals for our three days there:
8 Mississippi
Kites, 3 Greater Roadrunners, 2 Scaled Quails, 2 Lewis's Woodpeckers, 13
Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, 3 Gray
Flycatchers, 11 Eastern Phoebes, 20 Cassin's
Kingbirds, 20 Ash-throated Flycatchers, 2 Juniper Titmouses, 10 Bushtits, 22
Bewick's
Wrens, 18 Canyon Wrens, 30 Rock Wrens, 3 Curve-billed Thrashers, 17 Canyon
Towhees, 15 Rufous-crowned Sparrows,
37 Blue Grosbeaks, and 9 Orchard Orioles.
(The computer I'm using tried to auto-correct my 10 Bushtits
to 10 Buddhists, LOL.)
Here's a bit more detail:
* It was cool to see 10 drake Wood Ducks, but check this
out. We saw at least 7 (!) ducks
with Mexican Duck genetic material. One was a female that had good but not
great diazi characters; she was
accompanied by 5 young. And one was a pure-as-far-as-I-could-tell drake hanging
out with an adult male Mallard. An interracial gay couple; fine with me.
* Summer Tanagers. We had at least three, at widely spaced
locations along Carrizo Creek. Two said picky-ticky-tuck,
and another was singing its head off. I'm guessing the Summer Tanagers are
nesting here, à la Beatty Canyon Ranch a bit to the west.
* Wonderful to see all the kites; as with the Summer
Tanagers, reminds me of the situation at Beatty Canyon Ranch. Also a Prairie
Falcon attending an eyrie, and a Golden Eagle.
* Migrants. The White-eyed and Red-eyed vireos were cool,
but perhaps the most-lost soul was a Red-breasted Nuthatch chasing a Western
Wood-Pewee. Wood-pewees--all seemingly Westerns--were probably the most-numerous
migrants. We also found singleton Orange-crowned, MacGillivray's, and Wilson's
Warblers, a few Lincoln's and dark-lored White-crowned Sparrows, and a couple
Western Tanagers. Basically, common western migrants in low numbers.
* Prairie dog town. Here were saw 5 Burrowing Owls, saw and
heard 3 Cassin's Sparrows, and heard an improbable Wild Turkey.
* Phoebes. They sure are dense in there. Along with the
Easterns, we tallied 27 Say's and a few spuhs. Didn't see any for-sure Blacks,
but I wouldn't be surprised if they occur somewhere along Carrizo Creek.
* Ravens. They're hard. Seems like most were Commons, but we
had one or a handful of apparent Chihuahuans--including an audio-recorded bird.
* Warbling-vireos. We heard two and saw three. Both of the
heard birds were audio-recorded, and both sang the songs of the Western
Warbling Vireo; the seen-only bird matched the plumage of the Western
Warbling-Vireo.
It's a bit of an irony--although it makes sense, landscape-wise--that all the
Western Warbling-Vireos I've heard and
audio-recorded this year in Colorado have occurred east of all the Eastern
Warbling-Vireos I've heard and audio-recorded this year in Colorado.
* The ones that got away. I saw an "interesting,"
short-billed, somewhat pale thrasher; no witnesses, no camera or audio, no
dice. Also a meadowlark-like song emanating from a vast stand of juniper; some
sweet and slurred notes off in the distance in a stand of ponderosa and piñon
pine on a north-facing slope; and an uncooperative lower-case gray vireo in a
dense juniper. An Archilochus
hummingbird was perforce a spuh. It's okay--it's a good thing--to let a few get
away. Great excuse to come back.
Because I was with Chris and Mike, we studied far more than just
birds. I'm probably getting some of the names wrong, but we saw: Rocky Mountain
bighorn, gray fox, beaver, muskrat, rock squirrel, Colorado chipmunk,
grasshopper mouse, deer mouse, brush mouse, Mexican wood-rat, black-tailed
jackrabbit, desert cottontail, coyote, mule deer, elk, pronghorn, black-tailed
prairie bog, Botta's pocket gopher, Plains pocket gopher, and (offsite) a kit
fox family being harassed by a Common Raven; collared lizard, prairie fence
lizard, ring-necked snake, coachwhip (offsite), bullfrog, Plains leopard frog,
Bufo sp., and an unidentified turtle; largemouth
bass and sunfish sp.; scorpions and wolf spiders; insects
galore, including tarantula hawks and an impressive giant lady beetle; a triple
witching of common
checkered-skipper, variable checkerspot, and checkered white; a dinosaur track;
a meteor; and a ponderosa pine that Chris's corer indicated is 186 years old.
A comment about the Rocky Mountain bighorns. Although I am appropriately
disdainful of non-volant mammals, especially large game, I have to confess that
the highlight of the visit was the sheep. I've seen bighorns before, licking
salt off Trail Ridge Drive or posing dumbly for photos, but this herd of at
least a dozen astonished me. We came upon them as we were preparing to descend
a slot canyon, and the sheep pranced blithely and blazingly fast right up a
sheer cliff quite nearby. On the way up, one of the three lambs pirouetted
practically
in mid-air, bleated at me, and then resumed its impossible vertical trajectory.
Finally, I was shown settings that, according to Chris and
Mike, are possessed of significant "scenic value" and "scenic beauty." I am
still trying to wrap my mind around the idea. Well, I was plenty impressed by
all the tanagers and vireos, dinosaurs and giant lady beetles, bighorn sheep
and ring-necked snakes. Thanks, to Chris and Mike for a wonderful visit!--and
to The Nature Conservancy in Colorado for its amazing work statewide.
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado
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