The town of Rocky Ford certainly has a lot of White-winged Doves this winter, there were 181 counted at a roosting site in town on December 18, 2018, on the Rocky Ford Christmas Bird Count.
Brandon Percival Pueblo West, CO On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 7:05 PM David Suddjian <[email protected]> wrote: > Dale Pate and I focused birding and exploring on parts of Otero and > Crowley counties yesterday. > > In Otero... a flock of at least *114* *White-winged Doves* were at the > Hillcrest Cemetery at the southeast side of Rocky Ford, gathered in the > juniper row at the south side. This seemed like a pretty impressive number > to us, but Steve M. commented that it is indeed unprecedented for Colorado > and maybe even places near Colorado. The checklist is here, with a few > images:. > https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S52650486 > We saw them late in the afternoon as they were flushing or just moving out > of the south side of the cemetery, and they seemed to mostly depart the > cemetery area over a few minutes. The cemetery is an eBird hotspot, located > along CR 20 south of CR EE. A *Say's Phoebe* was at County Road 22.5 > southeast of Rocky Ford; I was surprised that eBird had no other records > yet this year in southeast CO, 9 Canvasback at Holbrook Reservoir came up > as rare for eBird. > > In Crowley... a flock of about 400* Am. Crows* at the east side of the > town of Olney Springs seemed a notable number for southeastern CO, more > than most reports it appears. How's that for thrills. Not much of special > note in this County. > > But considering both counties, and including short forays in Pueblo > (Nespesta Hills Road area) and Las Animas County (CR 197.6), we collectivey > found 9 *Loggerhead Shrikes* (no Northern). Raptors were predominantly > *Red-tailed > Hawk* (about 36), *American Kestrel* (about 30), and Nor. Harrier (5). > Our only others were single *Golden Eagle*, *Bald Eagle* and *Ferruginous > Hawk*. I mention these especially to draw a contrast to the raptor make > up observed in Cheyenne County (not that far away, but habitat differences) > when I visited there in January. On two full field days there we barely > scraped up 2 each of Red-tailed and Am. Kestrel, had just 1 shrike, and > there were contrastingly nice numbers of Golden, and Ferrug, and esp. > Rough-legged Hawks. And in Otero/Crowley we had 5 *Harlan's Red-taileds*, > compared to none on the Cheyenne efforts. Fun to appreciate the > differences, and to see all the hawks! > > David Suddjian > Ken Caryl Valley > Littleton, CO > > -- -- 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/CA%2BXeEuVRCGmRPm193MaCacsYkU-73BTO02ZJ6zEVaFV7ZS-DQA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
