[cobirds] Sedgwick County Birding 8/26/12

I wrapped up my weekend fieldtrip to NE Colorado today with a tour of Sedgwick County.  We set out from Sterling at sunrise and made it to the Stade Wayside Reststop in Julesburg by slightly after 7:00.  This is the large riparian track along the South Platte right across US 385 from last year’s Common Ground Dove site.

 

Things were slow at first, but shortly before 8:00 it really heated up.  Todd Deininger and Lynne Miller headed to the right flank and picked up an incredible 4 Eastern Screech Owls (in a family group) as well as three Ovenbirds.  I manned the middle of the formation with Jean Morgan where we picked up eastern Hairy Woodpecker and eastern White-breasted Nuthatch while John Vanderpoel probed the weaknesses of the bird defenses along the river.  John broke through so we rushed reserves in (John Tumasonis and Greg Miller (the lesser) along with Jim Guerin and Ann Tagawa) and got most of the avian forces to surrender.  (Sorry about that, I’ve been reading Civil War history and got carried away by thoughts of General John Sedgwick, namesake of our northeastern most county.)  Our route ended up with Willow Flycatcher (it even called once), Nashville Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler and Olive-sided Flycatcher. 

 

We then entered Julesburg to look for hummingbirds at the elementary school, but only had a single Calliope plus Baltimore Oriole.  While reprovisioning at the Julesburg Subway Prairie Falcon and a family of Blue Grosbeaks passed through.  Then we exited town via the Pony Express road on our way to Ovid.  This managed a pair of Solitary Sandpipers at the one pond enroute, but little else.  At the Ovid bridges, three Wood Ducks flew off the river and John V. had a pair of Field Sparrows.

 

In Ovid we worked the Lodgepole Creek for another Red-eyed Vireo before we happened on some sort of tree with little black berries which sported lots of activity including Black-headed Grosbeak, Orange-crowned Warbler plus Baltimore and Orchard Oriole.  From that point, things heated up and cooled off simultaneously, although we did have some nice additional shorebirds at Jumbo including Short-billed Dowitcher (S), Long-billed Dowitcher (L), Willet (L) and Sanderling (S).  Is there a more regular spot in the state than Jumbo for Sanderling?

 

A great day and great trip.  We totaled 127 species, including 21 shorebirds and 11 warblers over two days.

 

Bill Kaempfer

Boulder