Monday, February 18, 2008

Birding Along I76

February 15, 2008

Inserted by Gary Weston:

Four of us I drove up to Jackson Lake State Park in Morgan County.

Along the way, we relocated the 50+ Great-tailed Grackles at the south end of the Tree Nursery at Bromley Road (152nd avenue) and Piccadilly Road.

We ran into another flock of Great-tailed Grackles, about 200+ birds, on the north side of Interstate 76 at mile marker 29.3.

Birds were not many at Jackson Reservoir. We did find our target birds. Seven Long-eared Owls were hidden in the thickets at the western campgrounds. A flock of 6 or 7 American Tree Sparrows was accompanied by a White-throated Sparrow and 2 White-crowned Sparrows. They were in the thickets south of the white and red warning sign at the south end of Pelican Campground.

One adult Bald Eagle was perched in a tall cottonwood at Cove Campground.

We checked the feeders at Log Village area north of Fort Morgan. It appeared that most of them had been taken down.

Two Cackling Geese were among several dozen Canada Geese at Riverside Park, Fort Morgan, Morgan County.

Bryan noticed thousands of White-cheeked Geese in the field west of the sugar beet factory; we made a u-turn and scoped the flock from the south service road. One Greater White-fronted Goose was among dozens of Cackling Geese and thousands of Canada Geese.

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