It’s a tradition for me to be birding out of Boulder on Memorial Day. This year I headed down to Otero County, stopping first at Big Johnson Reservoir in El Paso County to take a look at the previously reported Pacific Loon. It took a while to find as it was feeding actively, and thus underwater more than on the surface.
In Otero County I only really birded a couple of spots this afternoon. First was Rocky Ford SWA area where, in the heat of the day, things were much slower than when Steve Mlodinow was there in the morning. However, I did manage to catch the female Wood Duck that he probably saw scurrying to get 8 chicks as far from me as possible.
Holbrook Res. was good in spite of the large number of campers on the west and south sides. The east and north had some nice habitat and I was by myself except for two guys with pickups trying really hard, but not all that successfully, to keep their trucks from becoming a permanent part of the lake bed. The treats for me were 3 White-rumped Sandpipers, 4 Snowy Plovers and a Stilt Sandpiper. At the grassy pond just south east of Holbrook there was a pair of Black-necked Stilts to bring the shorebird total for the area up to 8.
Late in the evening I went to Ft. Lyons for Black Rails. It was quite windy, so as soon as I heard one in the distance, I took off. But then I stopped at the marsh on HH between 13 and 14 where it was not quite so windy and I counted 4.
Bill Kaempfer
Boulder
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