I took advantage of the last full weekend off I'll probably get in months, and headed to the Four Corners region with my son. We searched for ruins and petroglyphs, camped and climbed in San Juan County, Utah on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The cottonwoods are late at leafing out, but I had a few Lucy's Warblers in Comb Wash (50 miles west of the state line) on Saturday, and a few more in adjacent Butler Wash on Sunday. I figured they might be back to their extremely limited Colorado nesting habitat, but it's 400 feet higher than I found them in Utah, so vegetation sprouting was probably going to lag.
On the way back to Durango, we headed through Bluff, Utah and into McElmo Canyon in Colorado. About 5 miles east of Ismay Trading Post, we headed north on the BLM road heading north into Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, climbing by a fair dirt road in about 2 miles to the pass, and dropping down to the first faint two-track north of the pass. We walked WNW, first along the faint two-track, then dropping north to the wash, then walking almost two miles along the dry wash to Yellow Jacket Canyon. I'm attaching a picture of the canyon, which shows that the leaves are just beginning to come out, and kind of shows the topography. As soon as we arrived, we heard Lucy's Warblers, although not many other birds were in yet.
My knowledge of this site comes from my first trip here with legendary Colorado ornithologist John Prather, who spent time in neighboring Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, was certain Lucy's Warblers HAD to nest in Colorado, and discovered them nesting here.
I believe it is probably much easier to find Lucy's Warblers before the leaves come out, and you get confused by the similar songs of some Yellow Warblers, which don't arrive for another month. There is a barbed wire fence crossing the canyon, which may be a private inholding. It is not necessary to cross the fence to get the birds.
Duane Nelson
Las Animas, Bent County, DO
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