Today I led a "big day" trip for the Boulder County Audubon Society. After much thought, I settled upon a tour mainly through Weld County for the day, and that worked out really well. 13 birders started out at 6 a.m. in Boulder and headed out to Norma's Grove on the Pawnee. I must say, my job was made really easy by having top teen birders Luke Pheneger and Pablo Quezada along; two highly skilled guys who could see, hear, and identify everything was a delight to all of the rest of us. Pablo and Luke will both be at the CFO Convention in Steamboat in four weeks if you want to come and see them in action!
Norma's Grove started things out with a big bang as a Hooded Warbler was singing away for us shortly after our arrival. It came down from high up in a cottonwood and stunned us at the range of only a few feet; nd then continued to be on display for our entire visit. I posted the bird immediately and I know that several other birders were able to go and enjoy it. Loggerhead Shrikes, Swainson's Thrushes, Lincoln's Sparrows and Orange-crowned Warblers were among other birds here. We next transversed WCR 96 through the Weld County firing range and then Murphy's Pasture. Lots of sparrows here including Brewer's, Clay-colored and Vesper. Longspurs were scarce, but Luke got photos of one. Crow Valley had more friendly birders than interesting birds. All the good stuff that we saw seemed to be foothills birds down low. Several of the other birders mentioned Mountain Plovers by the Briggsdale High School, but we dipped there. >From there we continued into the Loloff/Latham/Stewart's Pond complex to pick >up lots of ducks, shorebirds, etc. A Marbled Godwit at Loloff was probably the >highlight. Union Res. still has a Bonapartes's Gull Present as well as a >Forster's Tern. We continued to Lyons for a few foothills birds to wind up >our day back in Boulder at 6 p.m. with 112 species for the day. 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/SN1PR0301MB16485A1B500BF6B1AB89CD69E1E90%40SN1PR0301MB1648.namprd03.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
