I ventured out on an overnight trip to Yuma County on Saturday; the birding was enjoyable if not notable for any rarities. In other words the black birds were almost totally black not with black restricted to their bills, bellies or backs!
My first stop on Saturday was in the town of Yuma itself. Yuma has a number of odd little ponds dropped down in funny places in town. One of them in a tiny park right along US 34 as you come into town was home to an out of place Western Grebe. Although there were no other birds of note, I did notice that the hackberry trees were absolutely full of gall blisters and the junipers were covered with berries, so check back later. Flying over town was a single Mississippi Kite. The town of Wray and surrounding hotspots delivered the usual eastern birds including Northern Cardinals calling at both the roadside park in town and the fish hatchery west of town. Wray, if I have this right, is the first place that Northern Cardinal breeding was confirmed in the state about 25 years ago. Laird, which is almost in Nebraska looks far more like a middle-west hamlet than a high-plains town. It is worth a walk along the street that curves through town and then heads to the west (road PP and ½, if I remember). I had a Baltimore Oriole in Laird as well as Red-bellied Woodpeckers; lots of Red-headed Woodpeckers, too, and out there the Warbling Vireos, White-breasted Nuthatches and Downy Woodpeckers are inevitably "eastern". Sunday I visited the Hale Ponds/Crossroads areas and had more of the same including another Red-bellied Woodpecker, but not too much else of note. Driving home, side trips off the highway into agricultural areas brought out one Dick-Dick-Dickcissel after another calling loudly from the wires. 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/BY1PR0301MB0840672F136ACAB186656835E1A00%40BY1PR0301MB0840.namprd03.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
