Re: [cobirds] Northeast Colorado hummingbirds and others

COBirders,

I should add first, Brad and my sightings were on 8/12/12.

I forgot to mention this in my previous post, we also had a family of GREATER PRAIRIE-CHICKENs just south of the town of Sedgwick and just south of the river there.  They were right next to the road.  I thought for sure they would be pheasants but they were chickens.

To add to Norm's comments about hummingbirds in the fields.  Last week I did find both Rufous and Calliope working some alfalfa near the town of Yuma.  We looked there yesterday but could not find any.  We also looked at what little alfalfa we saw and did not find any.  But I agree with Norm entirely.  I would also say that a lot of the birds, a total of 42 in the past week, that I saw out on the plains were definitely using flowers as much if not more than feeders.  Thanks for the follow-up Norm.

 

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Mark Peterson
Colorado Springs

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From: "migrant44@aol.com" <migrant44@aol.com>
To: mpeterson33@yahoo.com; cobirds@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 6:33 PM
Subject: Re: [cobirds] Northeast Colorado hummingbirds and others

I am interested in Mark's hummer post in that on my largely unsuccessful Prewitt trip last week I also stopped at a couple of farm fields just west of Prewitt along Highway 6.  My intention was to look for dickissel (again, struck out), but the fields had good numbers of hummers.  The birds would fly into the field to feed on the flowers and return to perch on the fencelines, making for good views.  I picked out a couple of calliope and rufous, and then moved on.  Anyone heading out that way might want to take a closer look.  I spent a little time on it in hopes of a ruby-throated, but did not manage to convert any of the hummers into their eastern cousin.

 

Norm Lewis

Lakewood

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Peterson <mpeterson33@yahoo.com>
To: CoBirds <cobirds@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Aug 13, 2012 5:23 pm
Subject: [cobirds] Northeast Colorado hummingbirds and others

COBirders,

Brad Steger and I did some birding in northeast Colorado yesterday with the emphasis on looking for hummingbirds.  Last weekend I had gone out specifically looking for hummingbirds mostly because I have had so many at my house this year and thought maybe it would be a good year to find them out on the plains.  Anyway, here is what we had yesterday.  (I did not record exact locations for hummingbirds unless noted, we just drove around town looking for feeders and flowers, as expected Trumpet Vine was the flower we found them at most)

Lincoln county:

3 Rufous Hummingbirds (Limon)

1 Calliope Hummingbird (Limon)

Logan county:

0 hummingbirds in Crook, the only town we worked.

1 YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON unnamed pond just west of Jumbo.  If you are interested in more details on the location let me know and I will figure it out.

Morgan county:

2 Rufous Hummingbirds (Brush)

Phillips county:

1 Calliope Hummingbird (Haxtun)

2 Rufous Hummingbird (Haxtun)

1 un-identified Hummingbird (Holyoke)

1 Ruddy Duck (Haxtun sewer ponds)

Sedwick county:

6 Rufous Hummingbirds (all at Julesburg Elementary)

3 Herring Gulls (Jumbo, adults)

3 California Gulls

4 Bald Eagles (2 ad, 2 other ages)

3 Marbled Godwits

1 Great Egret

A smattering of other shorebirds and terns as expected.  Jumbo is very low but there were not tons of shorebirds.  

Washington county:

1 Rufous Hummingbird (Otis)

2 Calliope Hummingbirds (Last Chance, there is a feeder at the house on at the NW intersection of 71 and 36 but we actually saw them at the trap first)

1 unidentified Hummingbird (Otis, got chased off by the RUHU to quickly)

1 Dusky Flycatcher (Last Chance)

1 Brewer's Sparrow (Last Chance)

Yuma county:

3 Rufous Hummingbirds (Wray)

1 Calliope Hummingbird (Wray)

Last Chance was certainly coming back.  Willows are already about a foot tall or so and some Cottonwoods are coming from root it looks like.  The one thing that was maybe a little discouraging was the amount of Canadian Thistle (at least I think it is Canadian).

 

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Mark Peterson
Colorado Springs

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