THE BIRDS SETTLE IN FOR NESTING
BIRDING LIST – MAY 25-30, 2009
It was a week spent catching up on work. I did not make any trips, just my commutes back and forth through ten miles of irrigated farm land between my house and my lab. Yesterday, however, Joe Rigli and I set out on a morning’s birding north of Fort Morgan, only to be sidetracked for an hour or so by the strange-looking airplane at “FMX” (see following story).
The prairie in northeast Colorado is lush green due to the cool, very wet spring. This season’s stars so far are patches of a very showy white evening primrose which appear to be patches of snow from a distance and look more like scattered white tissues as you get closer.
Here is my week list:
Birds
American white pelican
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Canada goose
Mallard
Blue-winged teal
Swainson’s hawk
Red-tailed hawk
Ferruginous hawk
American kestrel
Northern bobwhite
Ring-necked pheasant
Killdeer
Ring-billed gull
Mourning dove
Eurasian collared-dove
Rock pigeon
Chimney swift
Belted kingfisher
Red-headed woodpecker
Northern flicker
Western wood-pewee
Least flycatcher
Eastern kingbird (see cover photo)
Western kingbird
Loggerhead shrike
Blue jay
Black-billed magpie
Horned lark
Northern rough-winged swallow
Cliff swallow
Barn swallow
House wren
American robin
Swainson’s thrush
Northern mockingbird
European starling
Yellow warbler
American restart
Common yellowthroat
Black-headed grosbeak
Blue grosbeak
Brewer’s sparrow
Vesper sparrow
Lark bunting
Grasshopper sparrow
Lark sparrow
Song sparrow
Western meadowlark
Brown-headed cowbird
Red-winged blackbird
Common grackle
Great-tailed grackle
Bullock’s oriole
House finch
American goldfinch
House sparrow
Mammals
Black-tailed prairie dog
Fox squirrel
Desert cottontail
Eastern cottontail
Pronghorn
Coyote
Reptiles
Six-lined racerunner (lizard)
Western rattlesnake
Are you sure this your rattlesnake picture is a Western Rattler. I’m under the impression that nearly all that we see around here are Priaire Rattlers: Crotalis Viridis.
I’ll talk herps with you some day.
Had a great Cortez, Rico, To-hell-you-ride, Black Canyon, Glenwood Springs, and Vail trip over the Memorial Day weekend. Didn’t see any lifers. Too early I guess for the Black Swifts but have a wonderful West Slope bird list.
Cathy and I were able to set up our 36 year old pup tent each evening between rains. Found out that the rain-fly isn’t really rain proof.
Have a great week.
Lark Sparrows are almost well named. They could be Sparrows who’s head is a lark!
The taxonomists strike again. Virtually all of the high ground rattlesnakes in the American West are now considered subspecies of Crotalis viridis with “western” or “prairie” rattler lumped together as Crotalis viridis viridis. So it’s a case of you say tomayto and I say tomahto.
Pete