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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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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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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…

It was an average birding week at the height of breeding season. It will be a week or two yet before the first fall migrants and post-breeding dispersal juveniles show up from other areas. It continues to rain almost every day – something we haven’t seen in these parts for a number of years. Prairie playas that have been dry for a decade or more are now full of water. It should make for a great shorebird migration.

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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:

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TWO STATES AND FOUR BIOMES

            It was a very interesting birding week. I spent the first 4 days here in Colorado and the last three in San Diego. On Wednesday I made a business journey into the ponderosa pine foothills of the Rockies to about 7,500’ elevation in southern Douglas County. Thus my Colorado list for the week contains montane as well as grassland species. On the San Diego trip Nancy and I spent time on or near the harbor but also took a long drive to the east and northeast into inland farm and ranch country. Having been to San Diego twice before, there were fewer possibilities for life birds this time around. Nevertheless I added two species: California towhee and red-crowned parrot.

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ANOTHER WEEK OF BIRDING IN MORGAN COUNTY, COLORADO – MAY 10-16, 2009

And just like that, the spring migration through Morgan County has peaked. Last week most of the trees were in flower or had tiny leaves just beginning to open. This week the leaves are half-sized and growing every day. The little birds in the treetops are less visible, but the bulk of them have already moved through.

I did not get out as much this past week as I did the week before. But yesterday Joe Rigli and I made a trip down through Wildcat Canyon and over to the vicinity of Jackson Lake. We hit a pocket of warblers in a grove of cottonwoods down in the canyon that held a mother lode of birds and filled out our spring warbler lists nicely including a couple of fairly unusual ones for these parts.

All in all it was a very cool spring and the migration less spectacular than average. But the year is young and there is much more to come.

Here is my list for the week. Next week: San Diego!

Pied-billed grebe

Western grebe

American white pelican

Double-crested cormorant

Great blue heron

Canada goose

Wood duck

Mallard

Cinnamon teal Read more…