[cobirds] Some Weld County sites today

Headed out fairly early for me (while Dr. Mlodinow was eating second meal of the day) and thought I would try Eaton Cemetery first.  The traffic along the "back way" from Fort Collins to Eaton was horrible.  As Red Foxx used to say, "That's urban renewal, for ya".  

I arrived at Eaton Cemetery as the armada of mowers left their barn harbor for the open green seas.  Forget that.

Crow Valley Campground looked wonderful in the cool mist of this day.  Birds were flying in from the north.  Lots of promise.  But as it turned out, I had 40 species with no rarities.  FOS Townsend's Solitaires (5).  A few pipits flew over.  As did an adult Bald Eagle, which I am not sure I've ever seen right over the campground (I later found it up at the A&B #1 on CR124), 1 Dusky Flycatcher, a couple pewees, 1 Red-headed Woodpecker, FOS down low White-crowned Sparrow, 1 Lincoln's Sparrow, many Chipping Sparrows, few Brewer's/Clay-colors, 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, heard one Green-tailed Towhee, fair number of Wilson's, maybe a half dozen Yellow-rumps, you get the picture.  No vireos,  no really big flycatchers, no gnatcatchers, no unusual warblers, no grosbeaks, no thrushes besides robins, no sapsuckers, very few empids, no juncos, very few Spizella sparrows other than Chipping.  A few lingering early fall migrants, a few mid to late fall migrants starting to show up.  

North of the campground and north of the USFS Work Center along CR77 just south of GR96 (where the birding trail starts) was a little group of 5 Cassin's Kingbirds sitting on fence wires.  Suspect they were working their way toward the outback in the northern part of the Crow Valley Campground complex (Mourning Dove Trail, dispersed camping, creek floodplain) where they tend to linger for a few days at this time of year.

A&B#1 on CR124 about a mile or so west of CR77, besides the Bald Eagle on a power pole looking to my untrained eye perilously close to electrocution, I had a fair number of shorebirds, but nothing unusual (avocets, lb dowitchers, both yellowlegs, least sand, solitary sand, snipe, Baird's sand).  Couldn't tell what the shorebirds in the muck north of the road were eating but last year at this time it was leeches!  Most interesting were Savannah Sparrows on the fence wire and a Wilson's Warbler snatching wild sunflower aphids so close beside the car I could barely focus the camera.  Just west of there was a dark (taiga?) Merlin with prey (blackbird?) that flew off before I could get stopped.

Then got a text about David Wade's discovery of Blackburnian Warbler at Prospect Ponds Natural Area in FC and tempted my fate with the Weld County sheriff, Nunn police, Wellington police, State Patrol, etc.  No police chase or ticket.  Bird chase ended the way many of them do - close but no bird.  Has it occurred to you "ticket" and "tick" share four letters, as if the latter could possibly be the etymological root of the former?

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins