Gwen Moore and I spend the day in the Sterling area scouting for the CBC coming up on Tuesday, December 16th. Even though Sterling was the coldest spot in the state today (outside of Leadville) the birds were great.
We started off heading up CR 37, the road that one takes to get to the State Welcome Center right off I-76. This road follows the S. Platte to the NE for 7 or 8 miles until it turns and crosses the river. Right in the area of the bridge over the Platte, birds were plentiful and active in an early morning dense fog that didn't burn off until early afternoon. We had a Harris's Sparrow and a Red-bellied Woodpecker as highlights in this spot (CR 40 east of US 138). Next was the tiny village of Pedroni at CR 43 and 48. Once again birds were super-active in the morning's cold fog-best were some Cedar Waxwings and Brewers Blackbirds along with a couple of Ring-necked Pheasants. We continued to North Sterling State Park where the mostly open (98%) reservoir contributed to the fog to the extent that we could not see more than 10 feet off-shore at first. As a result not many birds seen other than a flushed Great-horned Owl. We made our way to the southernmost campground in the park, and I have to tell tales on Gwen, the cold and fog were making it hard to get out of the car. "Come on," I said, "Or you'll miss the Snow Buntings." I think to prove me wrong, Gwen played a Snow Bunting call notes and immediately we heard responses from them overhead in the fog. We also had the similar but clearly different (drier, more rattle-like and less musical) calls of Lapland Longspurs and Horned Larks. Our first geese of the day showed up in the arms of a group of hunters returning from their blinds-well at least it showed us that there were some geese around. Slowly the ice-fog began to lift and we discovered a group of gulls on one of the few ice shelves on the edges of the reservoir. The first group had just Herring and Ring-Billed Gulls, but a second throng at the end of the park's west entrance road also had an adult Thayer's and a Bonaparte's-both extremely good finds for Logan County in December. Later in the day, the fog had totally dissipated and we were able to add to our totals including four American White Pelicans (our only "flagged" species for the day), Double-crested Cormorant and Western Grebe. On our way back to the metro area we stopped at Prewitt-the number of birds there was overwhelming, but nothing in terms of new species other than a small flock of Great-tailed Grackles. All told on the day, we found 54 species 53 of which were in the Sterling CBC circle. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- 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/F90B1155A81D474890D22EEFFFA7CAE51C1E6E0CD9%40EXC4.ad.colorado.edu. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
