ESTESBOG

(National Park Service photograph)

by Peter Walker

There is great irony in wildlife damage to Division of Wildlife property.  But it happens.

I arrived in Colorado from Maine the end of March, 1984 on the tail end of one of the snowiest winters in modern history. The agency I joined was near the end of a major operation to feed big game through the long months of deep snows that had driven stressed and starving deer and elk into mountain valleys in their desperate search for something to eat. Read more…

BIRDING AND NATURE LIST FOR MORGAN COUNTY AND VICINITY JULY 19-26, 2009

What would you get if you crossed a lark sparrow with a meadowlark? Whatever it might be, it would probably look quite a lot like a dickcissel. Dickcissels were this week’s stars in northeast Colorado. This sparrow-sized bird with a big voice has puzzled taxonomists for years. The species apparently evolved to take advantage of temporary weed patches left in the wake of the enormous herds of wandering bison. As the plains ecosystem was altered by man, dickcissels adapted. They have a strong affinity for alfalfa fields. But they remain more or less nomadic, here one year and totally absent the next five or ten. July, 2009 marked the largest incursion of dickcissels in this part of the Great Plains since at least the 1970s. The males can be found on power lines overlooking alfalfa or shrubby habitats. They have at least two loud songs, both manifestations of “dickcissel” – one buzzy and one clearly whistled.

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BIRDING AND NATURE LIST – JULY 11-17, 2009

I returned from two weeks in soggy Maine to find that things are still as wet here on the prairie as they have been since April. The plains are as green and lush as they have ever been in July in my 25 years here. A few fall migrants (sage thrasher, solitary sandpiper, greater yellowlegs) and post-breeding dispersal species (snowy egret) are beginning to show up. A trip to Poudre River State Fish Hatchery on a diagnostics call gave me a few mountain species to spice up my week list. My best bird this week was an adult Mississippi kite here in Fort Morgan. I’ve seen them here fairly consistently since the early 1990s and I suspect the species is trying to expand northwestward. I’ve only seen a nest here in Morgan County once in a huge cottonwood near the train station.

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Mother Nature was friendlier during my second week, giving me two full days of sunshine and a chance to do a little serious birding with my long-time mentor and friend, Don Mairs. We spent one of those days in the central Kennebec River Valley and the second in Sunkhaze Meadow National Wildlife Refuge. Between the two days we checked out both boreal and eastern deciduous habitats, lakes, marshes, rivers, and hayfields. One striking contrast between Maine’s wet northern habitats and high plains riparian woodland is the huge variety of nesting wood warblers. All warblers observed were in adult spring plumage, so the young were still in the nests at that time. Don’s excellent field speakers and I-Pod served us well in calling soras into camera range and pulling some of the more shy species into the open.

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by Peter Walker

            “You aren’t going to believe this one,” said the young Maine game warden as he poured himself a cup of coffee in the office of the fish hatchery in northern Maine one late fall day.

            Of course that got our full attention and all craned his way to hear every juicy detail. Not much goes on a typical day in an outpost village on the edge of the boreal forest.

            The state salmon, trout, and char hatchery where I worked that fall lay nestled in the balsam fir forest just downhill from the little village of Enfield, Maine. The next township to the southeast, and the last partially settled area before the start of the vast corporate timber holdings of Diamond International and Georgia Pacific, was Passadumkeag. The name is Abnaki Indian, but the locals simply shorten it to  “Dunky.”

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by Peter Walker

Growing up in a very rural area of Maine, having other kids to play with was the exception, not the rule. My social skills were slow to develop. Rural grade school was okay; but high school in the city was absolutely painful. Scholastically I was placed in the same classes with the A-list kids. But being an outsider and the son of a plumber, they were never going to cut me any slack socially. To make matters worse, I had the physical coordination and athletic ability of a top-heavy rock. I couldn’t make the B-list either.

By my junior year in high school I reached my full height of an even 6 feet. My legs were so short I wore pants with a 29-inch leg. My torso was so long I could not wear a hat while sitting in a car. I was a giant penguin!

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Farmington, Maine.  In the week since I arrived we’ve only seen sunshine twice, and then for only 2-3 hours at a time! Consequently I’ve only taken my camera out of its case a few times. Despite my inability to do any long-term birding, I’ve picked up a lot of species as incidentals or on short forays here in Farmington around my brother Tom’s place and at my brother David’s camp in the Rangeley country.

I bought a Maine nonresident fishing license and managed to go trolling on Beaver Mountain Pond in drizzle on two occasions. It was my first time sport fishing in years. I caught 8 landlocked Atlantic salmon and one brook trout, none of which were legal minimum length – but lots of fun just the same. Read more…

I began the week in Morgan County, Colorado. Now I am in Farmington, Maine some 2,500 miles to the northeast. I arrived here on Friday afternoon and it has hardly stopped raining ever since. On Saturday the sun came out for 3-4 hours in the afternoon and I got out and hiked through mature mixed forest long enough to pick up the songs and a few sightings of some old friends. I’ll be here two more weeks and hope to get out and do some serious birding if the weather ever breaks.

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            The plains pricklypear (Opuntia polycantha) is very abundant in northeast Colorado growing in a variety of habitats. Most of the year it is ignored by the general public. But in June each year the plains pricklypear asserts itself by coloring the prairie with an amazing array of ornate blossoms ranging from brilliant yellow to a sort of glowing pink to deep pink. The breathtaking show lasts perhaps three weeks and is followed by dark red fruits around the tips of the pads. Both the fruits and pads are edible but must be singed to remove the spines before they can be handled. Coronado and other early explorers of the Llano Estacado in Texas found little to eat except the pricklypear, the staple diet of Native Americans in the region. Read more…

CDOW FISHERY BIOLOGIST BEN SWIGLE (CTR) AND SUMMER ASSISTANTS HOIST TWO FRESHWATER DRUM AND TWO HYBRID STRIPED BASS SAMPLED FROM PAWNEE POWER PLANT RESERVOIR IN MORGAN COUNTY, COLORADO. BOTH DRUM PROBABLY EXCEED THE OFFICIAL STATE ANGLING RECORD.

It was a great week to be outdoors. It only rained once or twice in Morgan County (a far cry from the previous 10-12 weeks!). My work took me inside the chain-link fences surrounding Pawnee Power Station near Brush to collect virus inspection samples from warm- and coolwater fishes in Pawnee Reservoir. That gave me a look at whatever water birds might be using the 140-acre lake at this time of the year. I found about a dozen western and Clark’s grebes – non-breeders, I presume. Aside from those, there were only white pelicans and double-crested cormorants present.

            I did get an audible on a warbling vireo in the treetops of the cottonwood groves just south of the lake. It is only the first one I’ve come across all year. Can anyone tell me if the decrease is range-wide and why? Read more…