Hi all There are also probably nice playas on Pawnee NG I bet, too--northern Colorado got pummeled with rain and hail yesterday--our landscaped yard was decimated and I saw many flooded fields and roads on my commute home.
I have this site page bookmarked because eventually I won't to find all these "known" playas in Weld and see their status: https://pljv.org/for-habitat-partners/maps-and-data/maps-of-probable-playas/ Thanks Gary Lefko, Nunn http://coloradobirder.club/ On Tuesday, June 19, 2018 at 2:02:50 PM UTC-6, William Kaempfer wrote: > > I remember flying into DIA three years ago and noticing from the air > several large playas somewhere between Prewitt Reservoir and Jackson > Reservoir. I decided to do some exploring and in Mid-August 2015 I was > able to track the spots down overland. It wasn’t very difficult, really, > in fact I think I had seen one of them once before while driving down CO 71 > toward Brush. The three large playas (and a few smaller ones) had lots of > water, but sufficient shoreline to host large numbers of shorebirds and > waterfowl. One nice feature is that Morgan County roads ran right next to > these playas, in fact right through one of them. The three spots are at CO > 71 and MCR JJ, MCR 26 and JJ, and MCR 23 and HH. > > > > Over the next couple of years, the water gradually dried up and became > more saline. Bird lists dropped from total species lists in the 30s to 20s, > teens to single digits. But there were still some surprises—how about the > Snowy Plovers with chicks that Kathy Mihm Dunning and David Dowell have > photo documentation for? Right now the three playas have eBird hot spot > lists of 106, 103 and 85 species, of which shorebirds account for 19, 20 > and 20 species. > > > > So why all this field ornithology history right now? Well, two reasons. > Have you tracked the weather in the past week? Last night’s storm dropped > a band of 4 to 6 inches or rain basically right over these playas. While I > wouldn’t urge anyone to race out there right now—the roads are probably > impassable at the present, my guess is that the playas have been nicely > refreshed with the recent rains. Second, while it is technically not > summer yet, southbound shorebird migration is actually starting. So plan a > trip to Morgan County this summer and bring your scope for some shorebird > study. > > > > 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/682a38f0-443c-4db7-a909-bd45621941c0%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
