Late report--I birded Lake Meredith, Lake Henry and Lake Holbrook on Tuesday to see what early shorebirds may have stopped over and what other birds were around (on an unusually cool so enjoyable birding day with temps only going to 82 in the lower Ark Valley). At Lake Meredith I found an early Sanderling transitioning from alternate to basic plumage--and very different looking from what we usually see here as it was mostly in alternate plumage. I got some very good photos of this bird that I have uploaded to my Birds and Nature blog. <http://birdsandnature.blogspot.com/> Only other shorebird there was a Killdeer (tho most of the lake is surrounded by private property and not viewable). Lake Henry had only a couple of Killdeers for shorebirds. A pair of Western Grebes were doing their stereotypical breeding moves. Lake Holbrook had 2 Greater Yellowlegs.
On the drive to Lake Holbrook I spotted a very good number of Burrowing Owls--15 from a quarter mile of road, on both sides of the road from at least 4 burrows. All of the lower Arkansas Valley has been in a exceptional drought for the past 5 or 6 years and this year some parts of the area have had some rains to at least reduce the drought conditions which likely allowed this small increase in nesting. I also posted some photos of the Burrowing Owls on my blog. More on another species I found later. SeEtta Moss Canon City http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com -- 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/CAAUvckp-T14UcQp5zikyPpUj%2BMhUo_Mthxc_WUvbmUzppqDntA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
