Friday, September 14, 2007

Birding Pawnee National Grasslands Area

September 13, 2007

Ed Woodruff, Terry, and I birded in Weld County today. What a fantastic day weather-wise.

Our first stop was Highway 14 and County Road 51. No Mountain Plovers could be found; Six Burrowing Owls were at the northeastern corner. As we drove north on CR 51, we observed a Mountain Plover (about halfway between Hwy 14 & CR 90). No Mountain Plovers at CR 51 & CR 90, there were 3 Burrowing Owls to the north of the intersection. About halfway between CR 90 and east to Hwy 14, we stopped at another good Mountain Plover location. Again we found zero, but counted 7 Burrowing Owls.

We then drove the Mountain Plover Loop listed on the CoBus website. At CR 94 & CR 63, we drove north half a mile, stopped and walked west to the cement drains and past. No Mountain Plovers today, we did see several flocks of McCown's Longspurs (at least 34) and plenty of Horned Larks. This was the only place where we observed longspurs the whole day. Back at the intersection of CR 94 & CR 63, we observed 5 Sage Thrashers around the yard of the house at the southeast corner. Along the drive we saw 3 Red-tailed Hawks and 2 Golden Eagles.

Our next stop was Crow Valley Campgrounds. Birding was pretty slow here today. We did find a first year American Redstart in the southeast corner. Other birds found included 3 Western Flycatchers, 2 Brown Thrashers, 1 House Wren, 2 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 1 Blue Jay, 2 Red-breasted Nuthatches, half a dozen Wilson's Warblers, a dozen Dark-eyed Juncos (Slate and Pink sided). That was about it except for American Robins and Northern Flickers.

The mudflats at Lower Latham Reservoir were dried up. One Snowy Egret and one Great Blue Heron stood in the inlet canal. Beebe Draw Ponds had a few more birds. We counted Western Sandpipers, Baird's Sandpipers, Least Sandpipers, Stilt Sandpipers, Wilson's Phalaropes, and American Avocets.

Big miss for the day, we did not find any Lark Buntings.

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