[cobirds] Huerfano County Dickcissel Invasion!

Yesterday while listening to the Dickcissel call during breakfast, I told Paul of all the postings I had been seeing regarding this species. We went out to County Road 360 just to see what we could see. It was while at the Bobolink site at the beginning of 360 that we got our first inkling that we might be under invasion. While we did see and hear 3 Bobolinks...the most common call was that of the Dickcissel. Indeed we continued up 360 and all the way up to where hayfields and locusts gave way to scrub oak we were hearing and seeing Dickcissels continuously.  This piqued our curiosity...just how may of this bird could there be around?

We did not formally plan to do a survey and did not set out to come up with a 5 mile radius from our home, but during the day ended up exploring all the irrigated and sub-irrigated fields that we could think of on County Roads, 358, 360, 340 and 341. We ended up with somewhere between 75-100 Dickcissels! We became so overwhelmed at the numbers of birds we were seeing we ended up approximating.

We only saw our first Dickcissel pair in Huerfano County 5 years ago. Since then we have maybe see a dozen or so....but 75-100 in a day? We are under invasion!

We also saw saw 9 Bobolink males on Rds. 358 & 360!

Paul and Polly Wren Neldner

La Veta, CO

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