Thursday, November 2, 2017

Park County Reservoirs & Chaffee Owling

October 31, 2017

Richard Stevens:

Terry Michaels and I explored Park County today.  Temperatures reached the low 60s.  Winds were a terrific 12-13 mph with gusts to 21 mph.  Sheltering our scopes from the winds was a must to identify birds.

We found little extra birds from the Joey Kellner trip of 10/29. 

Our count included,
Eleven Mile Reservoir: Eight Surf Scoters, 2 White-winged Scoters, a Black Scoter (our only new addition to this seasons Park County Reservoirs), and two Common Loons.

Spinney Mountain Reservoir: two Surf Scoters, two Common Loons

Antero Reservoir: Surf Scoter, four Common Loons

Afterwards we searched for owls in Chaffee County.  Only one Northern Saw-whet Owl was found (BLM land, north of hwy 24).

A limitation in searching for Northern Saw-whet Owls is that they seldom make a sound in reaction to our "owl listening stations" recordings.  Therefore, we had to visit the stations every 20 minutes or so and look for the owls.  If readers remember, we are down to only two "owl listening stations" as an animal destroyed one of them last month.

Northern Pygmy-Owls on the other hand will make a "contact call" which can be picked up by our stations.  None did this night.

We checked the area where a Western Screech-Owl nested in Buena Vista (2007, 2009, 2010).  None has been detected since June 2010.

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