Greetings, Steve Mlodinow and I ventured to Kiowa County on Saturday, 11/10. Arriving to Neenoshe at dawn in still, chilly 20F air, we found the area reservoirs to be all socked in with fog. Thus, we started by land-birding the south boat launch/Locust grove area at Neenoshe and found dizzying numbers of white-crowned and song sparrows in the woodpiles and brush. Among the their numbers (400+ WCSPs and 100+ SOSP's) we also discovered a few Harris's sparrows, white-throated sparrows, late Lincoln's sparrows and a late savannah sparrow. Additionally, we encountered two pairs of a hairy woodpeckers and flushed a long-eared owl. A single white-winged scoter was the best waterbird we observed, while a curve-billed thrasher at the farmstead near the SE corner was also unexpected. After Neenoshe, we went to view Neegronda Res. We set up shop on the east boat launch and surveyed the calm water. Heat waves were generally discouraging, though somewhat intermittent. Eventually we found a pacific loon in the NE corner, 3 white-winged scoters in the SW, and an Iceland (Thayer's) gull in the west-center of the lake. Most surprising here was a single bushtit that noisily flew into a cottonwood near us, then departed just as quickly into the tamarisk along the lakeshore. According to ebird, this is a first Kiowa County record, however I believe Mark Peterson has encountered the species in the county before. Upper Queens Res. was our next stop and it was quite birdy. The woods and lake edge here yielded a similar experience as at Neenoshe earlier. There were fantastic numbers of white-crowned and song sparrows to sort through. We eventually pulled out 8 Harris's sparrows, a white-throated, and swamp sparrow from the flocks. In some still leafy Russian olives we found 1, and possibly 2 male varied thrushes. One bird flushed and made its way well behind us quickly. Shortly thereafter we found the/another male further ahead that also worked behind us. When we double-backed to try and get photos, Steve thought he heard 2 birds calling in different spots simultaneously. I wasn't sure how the original bird would've worked ahead of us in the first place so it felt to me like there were two birds here, though we could never pin that down. We also had a group of 4 kinglets here (3 ruby-crowned and 1 golden-crowned). Walking out to the lake edge we had a pair of American golden-plovers which were our only shorebird species of the day. This represents possibly Colorado's latest record in ebird for the species. Driving back north on Highway 287 we stopped to scan a prairie dog town after spotting a golden eagle perched on a utility pole here. To our amazement, we counted not 1, not 2, not 3, but 23! ferruginous hawks sitting in the dog town and along the fenceline. At times 6-8 were visible in one scope view. In my mind, this was the most amazing observation of the day and a fitting end as the wind picked up and the sun went down.
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