First, let me apologize for the late post of day 1 (Saturday) of this trip. I must have closed my computer before the send/receive was over and it didn’t get posted until I was home this evening.
On Day 2 we started with a Mississippi Kite at dawn in Holyoke. The Lion’s Fishin’ Hole in town was productive, but without anything more noteworthy than Orange-crowned Warbler, Indigo Bunting and Blue Grosbeak. We continued north from Holyoke to Julesburg where things were quite disappointing, in part because of winds that were now roaring out of the south—at least that cleared the smoke! Also disappointing was the fact that the hummingbird attracting plantings at the Julesburg Elementary School have died off, minimizing chances for those species in town. The Pony Express Road between Julesburg and Ovid, Ovid and a return to Jumbo Reservoir were all hot, windy and note particularly birdy.
By the time we got to North Sterling Reservoir and State Park the winds had eased back, but the temp had hit 100. One of my favorite (of many) spots in that park is the grove of trees deep off the SWE corner of the lake south of the campground. We were on the footbridge over the inlet canal heading toward that spot when Sue Riffe called out, “Cooper’s Hawk”. Well we didn’t get on a Cooper’s but the call on Sue’s part was noteworthy because pending review of the photos that Chuck Hundertmark took, the bird she saw has been identified as a Red-shoulder Hawk.
The bird was an immature with a strongly barred, long tail and distinctive, tawny panels or crescents in the primary tips of the wings. John Vanderpoel has discussed our observations with Brian Wheeler and we are pretty confident of the call. This is, I think, the first Red-shouldered reported in the state in 5 years, since a winter bird near Windsor.
The bird flew from the inlet canal toward the SE tree grove, so we continued in that direction since it was our initial objective. We did not re-locate the hawk there, but did find a couple warbling vireos and a Dusky/Hammonds Flycatcher. Also a single Barn Owl in the grove which makes 8 times in 9 years that I have led this trip that there have been Barn Owls in this grove. Well, now I’ve let all my secrets out, but since I’m about the only person to ever go to NSSP, I guess that is okay. We ended up the day by visiting the string of NE Morgan County playas. The sun was bad by the late-afternoon timing of our visit, but the shorebirds are still plentiful an varied. New for me at the Rd 26 X JJ and II playa were a few Red-necked Phalaropes among about 150 Wilson’s.
All told we had 116 species for the two day field trip.
Bill Kaempfer
Boulder
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