Greetings All,
I visited Navajo State Park in April and was impressed, though it was still early in season, and it was a cold and blustery day. I returned today, with a better sense of where to go, and I was most pleased (thanks to Tony L for putting this as a high priority on my SW CO trip). The highlights included Eastern YB Chat: This taxon (per Bailey and Neidrach) occurs as a migrant (rarely) in far e. CO. I saw one last summer with David Dowell at Tamarack (which makes sense, given its towhees and orioles). I was shocked to have one pop up and sing in front of me. The most important mark is that the white stripe beneath the cheek is very short. Also, the underparts are brighter (this bird looked nearly fluorescent orange-yellow, like a Prothonotary Warbler's head) beneath. Anyway, I got some fairly good photos. WE Vireo: Came into pishing. Popped up for 10 seconds or so, and then scurried away Other birds that are not so easy in Archuleta included Cassin's Kingbird, Blue Grosbeak. Numbers were lovely, with nearly 50 Yellow Warblers, 20 pewees, >10 chats, etc. The tastiest spot is reached by parking at the watchable wildlife parking lot at Navajo State Park (it is the one mentioned in the CFO County Website). Walk across the river on the foot bridge and then scurry down the embankment to your left. You will find yourself in one of the finest pieces of cottonwood gallery forest, with fairly thick willow understory, anywhere in CO. There are parcels of this that one can see from road farther upstream (Piedra River) that are inaccessible. Taken in all, it's amazing that there are not breeding cuckoos here (assuming there are not). But I digress. This spot not only bespeaks eastern vagrants, but sw ones as well (such as BC Flycatcher and Gray Hawk). The remainder of this portion of the state park has nice oak thickets, willow along the river, some sagebrush all of which might attract stuff and was birdy today. Good Birding Steven Mlodinow Briefly in Salida, 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/8D150E46DD3FAEC-1048-859E5%40webmail-d284.sysops.aol.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
