[cobirds] Re: PAINTED BUNTING Cottonwood Canyon, Baca County continues Monday

Thanks to Dick for posting on my behalf. I was out of email and cell contact for several days, but was glad to meet him and his crew in Baca County! I should add that they were most hospitable to me after we birded together, even feeding me Sunday evening after a full week in the field eating just camp food and snacks.

I was able to refind the PAINTED BUNTING quite easily mid-day Monday after work and even into the afternoon at Cottonwood Canyon - I managed to get good quality sound recordings to boot. (Is that worth submitting to CFO?) My hunch is that the Bunting will stick around a while. He seemed quite territorial and not-at-all skulky, so if you're thinking of going after him, I think he'll be worth the effort. Not much else to report there other than what Dick already mentioned, although the Yellow-billed Cuckoo re-emerged further up the canyon yesterday evening.

As mentioned, I did have a Black-throated Green Warbler at Carrizo Canyon Picnic area in Baca very near Cottonwood Canyon on Saturday but I was not able to relocate him after the first find.

Lastly, I will amplify Dick's discussion of the dryness in Baca County. It is frightening to see how dry and dusty the place is getting - I did a number of transects in the Comanche Grasslands over the past 9 days, and to be blunt they look terrible. We did get a rainstorm on Friday night, but it is just the proverbial drop in the bucket. However, my grassland transect today in Las Animas County was much cheerier, as I was able to report a lot more green, growing grass, and where the grassland meets with a juniper ravine those survey points were delightfully birdy. They could probably still use more, but at least it wasn't the dust bowl that so much of Baca and Prowers are resembling. The only birds that seem to be handling it well are Horned Larks and Cassin's Sparrows. On 3 of my transects I had no fewer than 3 and often 4 Cassin'ses at each of my 16 survey points. Love those birds.

Eric DeFonso

currently in La Junta, CO

On Tuesday, May 28, 2013 1:12:34 PM UTC-6, Dick Filby wrote:

Hi all,

Denise Landau, Tom and Kay McConnell and I had a great weekend in the Cottonwood Canyon area (where zero cell service, so apologies for lack of postings)

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