Well, things started off on a thematically correct note. Thursday evening,
Feb. 19, Hannah Floyd and Andrew Floyd and I stopped off at Neenoshe
Reservoir, Kiowa County, where the very first birds we saw were *Snow Geese*,
several hundred of them, streaming northeast. Then several hundred more,
and then another couple of flocks. Well over a thousand. And that would be
about it for us, goose-wise, for our entire time at the 13th annual High
Plains Snow Goose Festival. Our only other sighting, of a single individual
in downtown Lamar, Prowers County, was problematic (photo:
tinyurl.com/2015-02-21-goose).
Alrighty, no more geese for us, but plenty of snow. More about that in a
moment. First, the birds.
Willow Creek in Lamar was birdy, as usual. In the course of several jaunts
there, Hannah and Andrew and I saw a *Yellow-bellied Sapsucker*
(photo: tinyurl.com/2015-02-20-YBSA), two or three *Carolina Nuthatches*
(audio: xeno-canto.org/214121), a *Northern Cardinal* (audio:
xeno-canto.org/214446), an *Eastern Hairy Woodpecker* (audio:
xeno-canto.org/214448) and an *Eastern Downy Woodpecker*, a *Golden-crowned
Kinglet* and a *Brown Creeper*, several small flocks of *Cedar Waxwings*,
scattered *Yellow-rumped Warblers* (all *auduboni*, as far as I could
tell), a *Great-tailed Grackle* and a *Brown-headed Cowbird*, and a flyover
*Lapland
Longspur*. The only towhee we laid eyes on looked to be an *arcticus*
("Great Plains") *Spotted Towhee*, and five of the collared-doves we saw
looked to have *African Collared-Dove* genes; Bill Blackburn independently
reported the same five individuals.
Our field trip Saturday afternoon, Feb. 21, to "The Black Hole" (Two Buttes
State Wildlife Area, below the dam, Baca County) was highlighted by a *Rusty
Blackbird *along the creek. We saw porcupines (not birds), three of them,
as we almost always do on this outing. Other birds in The Black Hole
included a screeching *Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay*, a fussbudget *Canyon Wren*,
5 heavenly *Mountain Bluebirds*, and 4 seriously confused *Canvasbacks*. On
the drive out, we saw 2 *Scaled Quail*, 2 *Ferruginous Hawks*, and ravens;
and we pondered the wisdom of Bill Maynard.
Because of the weather, Hannah and Andrew and I had to stay over into
Monday morning, Feb. 23. So, on a tip from Meredith Anderson, we headed
over to Fairmount Cemetery, Lamar, where we re-found Meredith's *Red-bellied
Woodpecker*, black-tailed jackrabbit (not a bird), dueling *Townsend's
Solitaires* (audio: soundcloud.com/ted-floyd/toso), and swarms of *Pine
Siskins*. The flickers in the cemetery were *Yellow-shafted Flickers*
(audio: xeno-canto.org/214589). On the drive back to Boulder County, a
gleaming male *Common Grackle* in Byers, Arapahoe County, was a bit of a
surprise.
I mentioned the weather. By midday Friday, we were in T-shirts (Andrew,
slightly less), stalking a sun-bathing mourning cloak (not a bird) along
Willow Creek. Then it turned cloudy, and then windy, and then a full-on
dust storm; Saturday was overcast early, then rain and sleet in the
afternoon, then snow in the early evening, then heavy snow with spectacular
lightning after nightfall; Sunday was cold and humid with snow showers; and
the drive back Monday was frigid with freezing fog, blowing snow, and car
wrecks (trucks, too) everywhere. We couldn't get from Kit Carson to Limon
(road closure, accident), so we made our way along I-70 from Siebert,
wending our way past spinouts and wrecks much of the way back into the
Denver area.
Back to birds (and other wildlife). The High Plains Snow Goose Festival has
this wonderfully à la carte aspect about it. Everybody does their own
thing. I have to say, it is as much fun hearing about other people's
adventures as it is experiencing our own. The folks on Laneha Everett's
tour saw elk ("alk") and Greater Roadrunners and bighorn sheep; how often
do you see multiple roadrunners and a herd of elk in the same place?
Several participants in Duane Nelson's plover-and-tern workshop were
inspired to sign on as volunteers later this year. And a White-tailed
Ptarmigan was reported in downtown Lamar (photo:
tinyurl.com/Lamar-ptarmigan)! There was one unifying theme, though: We were
all brought together at The Cow Palace (photo:
tinyurl.com/Cow-Palace-Lamar), which has to be the best hotel name in my
experience. And each registrants' schwag bag was stuffed beyond capacity
(video: tinyurl.com/Snow-Goose-schwag). Other than that, it was
do-your-own-thing (video: tinyurl.com/Willow-Creek-hijinks), a strategy
that has much to recommend.
Thanks to Vincent Gearhart and all the steering committee folks for a
memorable weekend. Can't wait till next year!
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado
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