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.
