I went up to North Park yesterday to see if I could find (an old birding term,
see glossary of any birding book published before eBird start-up) a Greater
Sage-Grouse without aid of intel, gps coordinates, map flags, knowledge of
leks, or setting my alarm for 3am.
At about 1pm I was very lucky and finally flushed 3 after a couple hours of
walking around in suitable habitat just southeast of Lake John (i.e. wnw of
Walden). As precise as I'm going to get is east of milepost 5 on 7 Road north
of where it splits off from 12W Road. I saw 300 piles of both normal and
"clocker" droppings, but only the 3 birds. They flushed about 50 yards in
front of me, flew over the road, and that was that. Briefly exhilarating, not
satisfying.
Re the droppings, "normal" ones are pale yellow, usually found in little piles
of 5-20, and resemble cheese puffs. Don't eat them, however hungry you might
be. A "clocker" dropping resembles a little pancake made of black tar. They
are shiny, even when dry. I first heard the term decades ago from somebody in
DOW (aka DPW) and it was explained as the aftermath of eating wet food vs
normal droppings from eating drier food. But in searching on-line, as best I
can determine, a better explanation for this substance, which looks like
something you'd expect from a fracking tanker and not a bird, is that it comes
from incubating females during the brief periods of time each day they are off
the nest. Apparently they are somewhat constipated, which produces strange
(but consistent) results. The presence of normal droppings near the clocker
droppings is explained by the fact that after eliminating the byproduct of her
daily big sit, the female then feeds on sage foliage and produces a normal
dropping about every 10 minutes or so. If anyone reading this has more to add
to the subject of clocker droppings, I'd appreciate hearing it. I have a photo
of both kinds of droppings, if anyone is interested.
About the only other birds found amid the sage were Horned Larks. I'm not
saying Sage Thrashers haven't arrived in North Park, I just didn't see any.
Also of interest, my walking thru the densest clumps of sage flushed three
White-tailed Jackrabbits and produced a FOY dog tick (don't tell Rush but the
Endtimes are near when we have hummingbirds, ticks and Black Rails in CO in
March!).
Lake John is still 90% frozen but in a small pond just east of the northeast
corner I saw an elevational migrant getting close to their breeding habitat, a
male and three female Barrow's Goldeneyes.
I did not check Walden Reservoir except briefly in driving by. California
Gulls were back in numbers, as were things like Cinnamon Teal.
At the Moose Visitor Center feeders in Gould I had only 2-3 Brown-capped
Rosy-Finches, the local breeding species. Gray-crowns (and Blacks) nowhere to
be seen. The great majority of juncos were Gray-headed, indicating yet another
elevational migrant already having made it to the High Country. A Common
Grackle, probably the one that overwintered there, was near the feeders out
back. A small throng of Red-winged Blackbirds discussed the upcoming breeding
season among the willows. I saw neither Pine Grosbeaks nor Gray Jays.
On the way home in late afternoon, I checked a few spots along the Laramie
River Road (103Road) for American Three-toed Woodpecker but detected none.
This was not particularly surprising since even though this area has thousands
of dead lodgepole pine and Engelmann spruce, none of the infestations appeared
active. That is, it seemed like the areas I could access were "aftermath"
rather than "ongoing action" areas.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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