| Colorado Birdin' Apr 26-May 2, 2003 |
| (c) Copyrighted by Cyndie Browning 2003 |
I didn't get up as early on Wednesday (Apr 30) as I had on Tuesday, but took my time, enjoying breakfast with Mom and Dad before I left their house about 11:00. The Connected Lakes area of the Colorado River State Park is only a few miles from downtown Grand Junction and I was there in no time. The Birding-Colorado book said to scan the few ponds near the entrance to the Park, and there I found 2 Cinnamon Teal (YB#26) among a host of Coot. There were Canada Geese, Mallards, Hooded Mergansers, and more Coot on the river. As I walked back in among the willows, away from the water, I saw and heard even more Gambel's Quail than I had on Wednesday. And Magpies and Ravens.... y'know, now that I'm home, Blue Jays and Crows seem downright tame compared to their wilder cousins in western Colorado. There are several parking areas in the Park and after I'd explored here and there around one area, I'd drive to the next, park the car, and get out to look around. At one spot along the River, I heard a dull knocking, a sound I've heard before when a woodpecker is excavating a hole from INSIDE a tree, but I couldn't triangulate on the sound to figure out which tree it was coming from. Everytime I moved a few feet one way or another, the sound seemed to have moved back the other way. Finally, I realized that the sound was coming from the backside (or inside) of the apparently hollow tree I was standing right in front of!! (I was standing at the edge of a small drop-off while the tree was growing out of the river bank about 3-4 feet below me) and as I leaned around the tree first one way and then the other, I finally found Mr. Red-shafted Flicker (not a yearbird, technically, but he WAS the first Red-shafted Flicker I've seen this year), peeking his head and shoulders out of his nesthole, and he remained there until I backed away from the tree and left him in peace. Eventually, I left the Connected Lakes area and continued driving north along the River, stopping at various parking areas as I came to them. At one spot, I watched as a cloud of Tree (YB#27), Cliff, Bank, and Barn Swallows tumbled and rolled right over my head. I tried to turn several of them into Violet-green Swallows but I never did get one. If only they'd perch for a minute so I could get a good look at any one individual, then maybe.... While at this same stop, I was treated to the sight of a huge "hawk" soaring waaayyyy high above me. I was trying to figure out which flavor it was---it was dark and the golden parts under its tail and along the leading edge of its wings threw me a little---and then I noticed the Red-tailed Hawk bearing down on it, and realized I was looking at a Golden Eagle (which no doubt accounts for the golden hue on the back of its head). Next to the eagle, the Red-tail looked about the size of a House Sparrow badgering a Crow!! God, that eagle is huge!!!!!! and what a sight! I watched it for a good 10-15 minutes until I couldn't see it anymore. It was now around 2:00 in the afternoon. I wasn't quite ready to go home yet but neither did I want to spend a long time driving to any other distant birding location so I headed up to a place called Highland Lake State Park, NW of Fruita. And there I found at least 50 Western Grebes!! (YB#28) (That is, I stopped counting at 50.) I've never seen more than 1 or 2 Western Grebes at a time, but these guys were the most numerous bird on the whole lake. It's a manmade _fishing_ lake, which I supposed explains why all those Grebes were there. I also found the only Ring-billed Gull I'd seen in the previous 4 days. When I left Highland Lake, driving back to the interstate and Mom and Dad's house, I heard a ruckus from some trees near the road and thought I saw a Red-headed Woodpecker fly from the ground up into the tree. But as I continued driving away, I found in Sibley's that RHWP's don't extend that far west. "Well, hell," I said to myself, "now I have to go back." So I turned around and went back, parked off the pavement, and walked down the driveway of this house where it appeared no one was home (no cars parked in the drive, anyway), trying to find that woodpecker. I walked around for a bit, straining my eyes up into the very leafy green of this big ol' tree, trying to see everything! and found a heavenly host of Yellow-headed Blackbirds instead. The R2D2's of the bird world, and more than one of 'em went off in their "call of the wild" while I was there. I laugh out loud everytime I hear one. Well, that yellow head and white wing flashings in the late afternoon sunlight, yeah, that could explain why at 60 mph, I thought I was seein' a red-headed bird with black-and-white wings. So I got back in the car and headed for home. Thursday morning (May 1st), I ate breakfast with Mom and waited for Dad to get up so I could say good-bye. This means I didn't leave there until nearly 10:30, and still had 450 miles east to travel before I'd stop for the night, but after all he's been through, I needed to be able to say good-bye to Dad. I kept thinking, "as sick as he is, this could be the last time I ever see him alive." In time, we shed our tears and said our good-byes, and I cried all the way to the highway. And then, I was on my way home. The road back seemed longer than the one coming, perhaps because I didn't stop in Pueblo this time but continued straight east until I got to Lamar in the SE corner of Colorado and stopped for the night. I'd originally intended to visit the Lesser Prairie-Chicken lek near Campo (straight south of Lamar, just before you cross back into Oklahoma) on Friday morning (May 2nd), but I let the weather change my mind at 2:00 a.m. when a clap of thunder broke right over the motel, followed by torrential rain. I turned off the alarm (set for 4:00) and let myself sleep in until 7:30 before getting up. Once packed and loaded, I headed south on Hwy 285/385, intending to drop straight south into Boise City, OK near Black Mesa, before heading east toward Cherokee. My Birding-Colorado book mentioned Two Buttes State Wildlife Area just a few miles east of the highway. The book said, "Two Buttes can be spectacular in migration." Since it was right on the way (and since migration was already well underway), I turned left off the highway and began seeing flocks of male Lark Buntings (YB#29) that would've had my friend Rob's head spinning!!! (that boy surely and purely LOVES Lark Buntings!!) At least 6-7 large flocks of perhaps 50 or more birds each, some flying, some perched on the barbed wire, many of them singing, and all of them made me laugh for joy to see 'em. Rob would've thought he'd died and gone to heaven! There were also scads of Horned Larks, Lark and Grasshopper Sparrows (YB#30), Western Kingbirds, Western Meadowlarks, and a Loggerhead Shrike. I had no idea what I'd find out there, and the terrain didn't change much from the rest of eastern Colorado that I'd already seen until I'd gone about 3 miles straight east and suddenly came upon this "mountain" that looked like a dromedary (2-humped) camel resting on the ground---a camel with no head, that is. I turned right and followed the signs to an earthen dam where I pulled off the dirt road on the down-side of the dam, parked, and got out to look. It was cold and damp after the overnight rain, even foggy, and I had to go back to the car for my jacket. Grabbed my Sibley's Guide and binocs, too, and then perched on a large flat rock above the spillway area and watched. Great Egret, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Turkey Vulture, Gadwall, Mallard, Blue-winged Teal, No. Shoveler, Redhead, Ruddy Duck, No. Bobwhite, Amer. Coot, Semipalmated Plover (YB#31), Killdeer, Lesser (YB#32) and Greater Yellowlegs, Spotted (YB#33) and Pectoral (YB#34) Sandpipers, Long-billed Dowitcher, Wilson's Phalarope (YB#35), Ring-billed Gull, Forster's Tern, Rock and Mourning Doves, Cliff and Barn Swallows, Butterbutts (Myrtle), Red-winged and Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and both Grackles. Not to mention the peeps I couldn't ID because I was too far away. I counted 36 species of birds in less than an hour without moving off that rock!!! and I didn't even get to the woodlands on the up-side of the dam where they say Barn Owls nest in the cliff walls. Since I got home, I've seen several postings about the birds seen there, especially in the woodlands that I didn't get to. An awesome place, and I left there hoping I can visit it again soon. From there, it was a hop, skip, and a jump to Cherokee (well, 270 miles, actually!), and I got there in plenty of time to join the OOS crew the next morning and bird the Great Salt Plains. Since I've already written about that, I won't repeat it here. But I do want to add that I left Colorado with 82 species now on my Colorado bird list, in place of the ONE I'd started with. I also accumulated 35 yearbirds before I even got to Cherokee, to say nothing of the 19-20 yearbirds that Phil and I found at the Great Salt Plains that weekend, which bumps me up over 200 species for the year..... so far. |
| Chapter 3: Apr 30, The Connected Lakes, Grand Junction May 2, Two Buttes Reservoir |
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