John Vanderpoel and I headed east today to see if there was anything left in the NE corner of the state after the flurry of birds in September and October out there. There were.
About the first bird we had was a Greater Yellowlegs in the South Platte at the Red Lion exit off I 76. Then we passed the Schiller Farms pond on Logan County Road 93 just west of Jumbo Res. It was full of typical duck for the area, and the field surrounding it must have had more than 50 Ring-necked Pheasants. Little Jumbo (aka Red Lion Reservoir) is still low enough to have some nice shore on which we found a Long-billed Dowitcher and a Least Sandpiper.
Jumbo Reservoir was being hunted at the west end, so the east end was full (and getting fuller as we watched) of ducks and geese (all four of the most common dark and white geese were present). The best duck species was a pair of male Greater Scaup. There were also four Baird’s Sandpipers putting us at five shorebird species for 11/3! The SE campground at Jumbo had lots of American Tree Sparrows and a couple of (eastern) White-breasted Nuthatches.
In the Ovid woods we had our most surprising bird of the day, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Triple digit juncos were present with at least one White-winged as well as a flock of Cedar Waxwings. Julesburg, including dePorter Pond, the old rest area and the cemetery, was pretty slow. But the triangle woods at 385 and CR2 had a nice flock of Red Crossbills (with an unfamiliar call). Just north east of there an American Crow caught our eastern plains attention.
Holyoke was not particularly exciting, but Haxtun was. The town park had pairs of Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and Brown Creepers. The shelter belts behind the school had more Red Crossbills (this time with a familiar call note) and a Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawk were making all of these birds nervous.
All in all we had 74 species which we thought of as not too bad.
Bill Kaempfer
Boulder
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