Listing Through Life

When I saw that Wednesday was forecasted to be clear with a high of 71°, I decided to take the day off and explore. I spent the morning in Elevenmile Canyon and then after lunch I went to Eleven Mile State Park. Here’s what I saw.

Juvenile Bald Eagle that hasn’t yet left the nest. I’ve never seen one this gray before. I even wondered if it was a Golden Eagle, but the size of the bill and the lack of white on the tail (which is clear from a photo I haven’t posted) convinced me it’s a Bald Eagle.

American Dipper. I first saw it standing on a partly-submerged log near shore, but it soon flew out into the river and walked through and under the water for several minutes.

I think this is a Least Chipmunk.

Male and female Common Mergansers. I’ve found it very difficult to catch the green on the head in photos, until this shot.

I drove all the way up the canyon, stopping wherever it looked birdy and walking. I found one trail — longer than I expected — that led uphill to an overlook. I wasn’t prepared for the walk — I hadn’t brought water — but I survived, and that’s where I saw many of the birds.

Other photos of the South Platte River in no particular order.

I ended up with 39 birds, although no new ones for the year. I was surprised to find out that today rocketed me up to second place on the list of birds seen here. If I had known that, I would have stuck around a little longer and seen four more species to take the lead. The place is beautiful, but except for on the trail to the overlook, I was never more than 20 yards from the road, and traffic is steady and dusty.

After grabbing a mediocre cheeseburger and fries that tasted like fish in Florissant, I drove to Eleven Mile State Park and explored.

On one of the larger islands of rock, there was a mixed rookery of Double-crested Cormorants, California Gulls, and American White Pelicans. I tried to get closer for better photos, but someone was camping on the point that came closest and it wasn’t all that close anyway.

This California Gull dove into the lake near the shore about 30 yards away from me and came up with a huge crayfish. It carried it up on shore and proceeded to destroy it.

artemisiospiza (from artemisio, sagebrush, from the Greek myth of Artemis, the moon goddess skilled in the use of hallucinogenic plants, and spiza, finch) nevadensis (of Nevada)

Friday, June 5, 2020 — 9:20 am

Taos County, New Mexico — County Road B-051 south of Costilla

This lifer sighting was a combination of effort and luck. The effort was the time and energy to get to the appropriate habitat. Sagebrush Sparrow is fairly common in Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming, but not in Colorado. A few are found along the Front Range during spring migration, but they’re rare enough there to make the rare-bird reports, and I’ve missed on my few attempts to see one. They breed on the western edge of the state and in the San Luis Valley. The closest area where they’re seen with any consistency is a three-hour drive from my house near Great Sand Dunes National Park. The specific location where they’ve been sighted most recently (on June 2, three days before) is 50 miles south of the park near Costilla, New Mexico. I left home at 6:00 and arrived in Costilla a few minutes after 9:00.

The luck was in seeing the bird at all. I found County Road B-051, a dirt road through sagebrush flats and cropland. I had the exact location where they’d been seen mapped out, but I kept my eyes open as I drove to it. I wasn’t on the road for five minutes when I saw a small bird fly about 50 yards in front of my car. Although I was still moving, I managed to follow the bird’s flight and see it land on top of a sagebrush bush. I braked and, while still behind the wheel, looked through my binoculars and knew I had my lifer. I got out for a closer look. For perhaps three minutes, the Sagebrush Sparrow flew from bush to bush, never closer to me than 20 yards away. Then it disappeared down into the brush, chasing another bird which may have been a second Sagebrush Sparrow. It paid no attention when I played its song, although its closest approach came in response to the pishing noises I made. I managed to get a few mediocre but diagnostic photos but figured I could do better when I got to the places where others have seen them in recent days.

I drove slowly and even got out and walked along the road, but I never found another one. I read later that Sagebrush Sparrows just sing early in the morning and are secretive at other times. I was lucky I spotted the one I did since it wasn’t doing any singing or even acting conspicuously. Six hours (round trip) is a long way to drive to see a bird for three minutes. But it would have felt a whole lot longer if I hadn’t seen it.

Sagebrush Sparrow and Bell’s Sparrow were considered a single species — Sage Sparrow — until 2013. I saw a Bell’s Sparrow in California in 2015. The Sagebrush Sparrow is a medium-sized sparrow with a long tail, a streaked brown back, and a gray head. It has a narrow black throat stripe, a white eye-ring, and a white spot in front of the eye. The breast and belly are white with a dark smudge on the breast. It lives in extensive sagebrush flats and spends most of its time running on the ground, generally only perching in the open to sing early in the morning.

I took vacation days for the final three days of the week. On Tuesday evening, I walked down to Monument Branch.

Black-billed Magpie

On Saturday, We drove to Lake George and spent three hours in Elevenmile Canyon. At first, we got on the wrong road and happened upon a pond with three American White Pelicans.

When we finally got turned around, we spotted two Clark’s Nutcrackers along the road. These two shots are of the same bird.

Townsend’s Solitaire

We pulled over in a quiet stretch of the canyon and ate the picnic lunch we prepared. The top two photos are looking upstream and downstream from the spot where we ate lunch.

On Thursday, I drove to southeast Colorado, south of La Junta, to look for Gray Vireos. I’m 60% sure I saw one on County Road 197.6 (really), but it disappeared before I could get a photo or a satisfying look, so I just can’t pull the trigger and list it. The other road where they’ve been seen this spring had aggressive No Trespassing signs, so I skipped it and birded Higbee Valley. It was near midday by this time, so there weren’t a  lot of birds around.

Cassin’s Kingbird

Blue Grosbeak

Lark Sparrow

Red-headed Woodpecker

I stopped at Holbrook Reservoir north of Rocky Ford on the way home. I parked on the north side and walked along the shore. There were a few shorebirds and ducks left, but not many. I missed the path to my car on the way back and walked an extra mile, but that’s OK because it led me to my first Colorado Snowy Plover.

phrynosoma hernandesi

Thursday, May 21, 2020 — 3:45 pm

Pawnee National Grassland — Road 47

I was driving carefully along the tire tracks that were all there was to Road 47 when I saw what looked like a toad in one of the ruts. I pulled over to avoid running it over and looked down on it. The body was flat, and I wondered at first if it had been squished but then I saw that the head was moving. I pulled forward and parked, then walked back to it.

It put up with me crouching down and taking photos from inches away for a couple minutes, then scurried away along the rut. I decided I’d given it enough grief, and we went our separate ways.

Hoping to get some photos of prairie birds, I drove the two-and-a-half hours up to Pawnee Grasslands. I almost didn’t go — I hadn’t slept at all well for two nights. But the weather was supposed to be an almost perfect 70° and clear with calm winds.

The previous time I was here, back in May 2018, I had the entire grasslands to myself. Today there were a lot of people around, including a bunch of motorcyclists who weren’t there to see nature. There were Lark Buntings, Horned Larks, and Western Meadowlarks every few feet, but not much else.

Grasshopper Sparrow

I met a couple who were walking back from a small grove of cottonwoods. They said they’d seen a lot of birds in the grove, so I decided to park and walk the mile-and-a-half round trip. I found two Western Kingbirds, two Eastern Kingbirds, a Brown-headed Cowbird, a Chipping Sparrow, a Lark Sparrow, an Audubon’s Warbler, a Green-tailed Towhee, and a Hermit Thrush hanging out by the seven trees.

I did manage to find a lone Cassin’s Sparrow and three Grasshopper Sparrows along the drive, two of my target species, but I completed the entire auto tour route without seeing any of the others.

It was already past 2:00, and I was tired. I contemplated heading home, but decided to drive 20 miles west to another part of the park where Chestnut-collared Longspurs had been seen recently. I was looking for Road 47, but missed it the first time by. I turned around and looked more carefully. This time I found it.

I did see three Chestnut-collared Longspurs, but they were too far off in the grass for good photos. I had to drive carefully to avoid bottoming out my car, and for that reason, I spotted a horned lizard (next post). I drove back to the start of the auto tour route to take another stab at McCown’s Longspurs without success.

By this time it was 4:00. I still had a two-and-a-half hour drive home. But I’d made the effort to get all the way up there and I knew I wouldn’t return this year. I decided to drive to the eastern portion of the grasslands to look for Mountain Plover. When I got to the spot, my search seemed hopeless. There was a lot of flat land covered with cactus, which made it unlikely that a plover would be easy to spot.

I was about to give up when I saw a McCown’s Longspur on the roadside fence. Before I could get a photo, it flew 50 yards off into the field. I managed to track it and even take some lousy video. At one point, it was feeding two (that I could see) young on a nest. As I was watching it through my scope, I saw another bird nearby. I moved my scope to look at it — it was a Horned Lark — and right behind it was … a Mountain Plover!

So even though the day was long and the birds were few and scattered, I managed to see all that I was looking for except a Long-billed Curlew. I stopped at McDonald’s for my first meal of the day and got home around 8:00 pm.