[cobirds] Yuma Highlights, 9/14/13

Truth can be stranger than fiction...

I might not normally post this. I frequent Yuma Co for a handful of reasons, some of which are even good reasons. One of them is that it is usually a safe bet that time spent birding here will be spent be oneself, finding (not chasing) birds. I like it because chances of seeing another birder are very slim; a day spent there is a chance to get away from the hubbub of the Front Range and just go for a walk. But I figure, who wants to drive all the way to Yuma to bird anyway, save a few die-hards? And besides, it really is a pretty challenging place to bird (which is of course another reason I spend time there): no water, vast tracts of habitat that would require days to comb, ticks and poison ivy galore...So at the risk of making the place sound like it isn't the hot, humid, weedy, birdless slog it can be...here goes:

Wray City Park:

Quiet, except for a Baltimore Oriole and a Black-and-white Warbler

Stalker Pond:

Also pretty quiet, and a real challenge to pull all of the following out of there:

Wood Duck 1

Osprey 1 

Sora 1

E. Screech-owl 4

Red-bellied Woodpecker 1

YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER 1

Great-Crested Fly 2

Red-eyed Vireo 3

Cassin's Vireo 2

BLUE-HEADED VIREO 1

Bell's Vireo 1

Nashville Warbler 2

Am Redstart 2

Western Tan 1

No Cardinal 2

Laz Bunting 2

Indigo Bunting 1

Dickcissel 1

Field Sparrow 1

Lots of birds all being very secretive

Fish Hatchery:

Dead, except for 3 Eastern Phoebes

Sandsage SWA:

EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE 1

Bell's Vireo 1

Am Redstart 3

Nashville Warbler 1

Orchard Oriole 1

Hale Hedgerows (below Bonny):

Alder/Willow Fly 1

Great-Crested Fly 1

MOURNING WARBLER (imm) 1

Nashville Warbler 1

Hale Corner:

Red-bellied Woodpecker 1

YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER 1 (yes, 2nd for the day, hence the first line of this post)

Great-crested Fly 2

Red-eyed Vireo 1

Cassin's Vireo 1

Am Redstart 2

Nashville Warbler 1

Ovenbird 3 

MOURNING WARBLER 2 (1 Ad M, 1 imm; again, see first line...)

This, for me, constitutes a phenomenal day in Yuma, and probably for anyone else. The only other person I know who regularly does better there is Dr. Steve.

Combined with Dr. Steve's YB Fly and Mourning Warbler from last week, the MOWA I had on Friday, and the birds at Flagler yesterday, that's a pretty good showing for those species in the span of a week (4 YBFLs and 6 MOWAs). Add in the Blue-headed Vireos from Flagler and Last Chance, it's kind of interesting how further east (Yuma, Kit Carson, Lincoln, Washington) there was a concentration of a few really rare birds, while closer to the Front Range things were apparently quite a bit more diverse.

Cheers,

Dan Maynard

Boulder, CO

Sent from my iPhone