Saturday, July 28, 2007

Divide Road, Uncompaghre Plateau Montrose County

Thursday July 26, 2007

Back to the Uncompahgre Plateau, we entered from the south end late in the afternoon. We drove the Divide Road from Windy Point south to Columbine Pass stopping every 0.25 miles (GPS waypoints). We played first Flammulated Owl playback and then playbacks of Boreal Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Northern Pygmy-Owl in that order. Our success was unbelievable to us anyway.

Our technique was to play 30 seconds of the owl’s primary calls. Wait 30 seconds, then play again. We repeated this four times (as we were told that if the owl did not respond in 2 minutes, they would not do so). This was are most ambitious night yet. We used every bit of darkness to get the count done.

Final tally was:
20 Flammulated Owls at 42 stops
1 Northern Saw-whet Owl
2 Boreal Owl
0 Northern Pygmy-Owl

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