[cobirds] Burrowing Owls

28 July 2014
5:15 pm
Burrowing Owl(s) Sighting

I was driving from Grand Junction to Montrose today on US Hwy 50. I was scanning the side of the road on my right, when I noticed two birds standing on top of a prairie dog mound in a dog town.

I turned around and went back to the location. I pulled off the highway and watched for approximately 30 minutes two burrowing owls standing on top of a mound in a prairie dog town with binoculars..

They were obviously burrowing owls. Both birds possessed brown plumage with light colored spots and bars and long stick legs. They had buffy breasts. Their mound was surrounded by active prairie dog mounds. I could clearly see their large eyes with cream coloring above and below.

When traveling from Montrose west to Grand Junction here are the directions.

Birds on on west side of east bound lane. Country is barren and has sparse vegetation, greasewood, and salt brush.

There is a small dirt road leading off Hwy. 50 down to a cattle guard, (this can be difficult to see if traveling fast). The road ends at the cattle guard. Stop before the cattle guard for the best view. Look left (south) along the fence-line. The mound is about two- dozen- yards west of the fence-line. It is one of the closest mounds to the fence-line. Just west of the mound is a minimal draw with some bushes growing in it.

From the mound, out across the flats at 11:00 o'clock there is a white single-wide mobile home with dark trim and a tan utility building with an orange roof.

The small dirt pull off road is .8 miles west of Mile Marker 49. There are turn-arounds on Hwy 50 about 1/2 mile on either side of the pull-out. You can turn around to reach the dirt road. At the cattle guard there is a power pole with a number tag that reads 04/0/155.

The dirt road is 3.8 miles west of the Bridgeport Road and 4.8 miles west of the Delta-Mesa County Line. If travelling east, and you see a tall cell tower to the west and a lone house nearby that is large, grey and three stories high, you have gone too far. Turn around and go back.

The coordinates for the dirt road are: 38° 54' 39" N
108° 22' 27" W

Attached is a jpg file of the site using Google Earth

Maureen Briggs
Montrose, CO (970) 240-4108, skelligmichael@charter. net

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/ac5267eb-4c35-4c58-ba18-437285e49e46%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.