[cobirds] Short-eared Owls (Larimer) on 2/22

I took a drive up to Rockport (Weld) along US85, went a short ways east on CR128 to check for rosy-finches along some of the rocky outcrops, then went west thru Carr over to the overlook at Hamilton Reservoir (which was closed).  As I drove west on Buckeye Road (= 82Rd), at about 4:30pm I encounted 3 Short-eared Owls on fence posts.  The location was 0.8 miles west of the turn-in to the power plant/dam/observation area (which would be about 3 miles west of I-25).  At a point 0.6 miles west of the turn-in to the plant is a private road going off to the south named "Buddy Rooster Lane".  The owls were 0.2 miles west of that, on fence posts on both sides of Buckeye Road and south of the road in the vicinity of some square hunting blinds painted in camo patterns.  After it started getting darker and they began hunting in earnest (about 5pm), I actually saw one owl sit on a hunting blind, and saw another catch and eat a vole right beside the road.

On another subject, at Grandview Cemetery today it was pretty quiet but the female Great Horned Owl is now on the nest (was not on the nest last Friday) and I had a flock of about 25 Mountain Bluebirds fly over heading southeast toward City Park.

Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins