From the Pawnee District Ranger ...
I would suggest calling the Sheriff office, when you see a true and verifiable violation of law on the Pawnee, just like you would anywhere else in the state. Most weekends we have a forest service patrol person out there, looking for violations, but they can't be everywhere, and unfortunately, the public has no way to call them directly when they see violations. If someone in the public sees a violation and has witnesses or pictures, license plates and other information, and is willing to testify in court, then we can often follow up on that after they contact us when the office opens on the weekdays.
As far as roads are concerned. The county maintains a selection of roads for their priority purposes, generally for people to get to their homes, ranches and other commercial uses. The level and timing of maintenance can vary. The Forest Service also only maintains a small number of roads to higher standard mainly bird tour and Pawnee Buttes. Many of the remaining roads are open to public use but they are maintained at different standards for different needs. Sight-seeing and bird watching is a viable use of the roads but not the priority. We have limited resources to maintain roads. The road crew comes from another forest and is not scheduled to be here for a few weeks yet, so early birders may have to contend with roads less groomed. We are not a park. The road network is not intended to be maintained for all vehicle types to use in all places (portions of road 96). We allow folks to use some of them if they wish to, but that does not drive the decisions of which roads we spend limited resources on to maintain at a higher standard.
Again, thanks for the info. I will pass it on to our patrol person so that they can make sure they are spending some time in other areas and especially along the bird tour route. Sometimes it is easy to get focused around the shooting range when that many people are showing up.
Thanks Gary Lefko, Nunn
http://coloradobirder.club/
On Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 8:36:44 PM UTC-6, Dave Leatherman wrote:
Birds of note sensed:
After getting a not so early start, I arrived near where WY-NE-CO come together ne of Grover about 8am. My target was Sharp-tailed Grouse, which everybody has seemingly found. I got a few extra hours of sleep but not the birds, these two facts being no doubt related. However, I could sense their presence. Can I make a pencil mark on the checklist if I don't push hard? Also, for what it's worth, I met a nice local rancher named Mr. Klingensmith who has lived in the area 20+ years and said he often sees them while driving e on CR134 between 125 and 129 and also going from 134 n on 125 a few miles to the unmarked State Line.
Birds of note seen:
Chestnut-collared Longspur (at least 20): mostly near the recently reported S-t Grouse locations, especially on the w side of Weld CR115 n of 134.
Northern Shrike (1a) 117 n of 134
Loggerhead Shrike (1a) 111 just s of the State Line (not too many days in spring or autumn when both shrikes occur on the northern CO plains).
Long-billed Curlew (4) in wheat stubble s of 134 just w of 125
Rough-legged Hawk (at least 4): in the general area of the S-t Grouse sightings plus one on CR77 near GR96 n of Crow Valley (shown)
Golden Eagle (1) CR90 w of CR49
A&B Res #1 on 124 a few miles w of 77: water is high, no shorebirds, just common duck species.
At Crow Valley late this afternoon into early evening (gate is now open, hosts on site):
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1m)
Townsend's Solitaire (2)
Total of 25 bird species at CVCG/Briggsdale plus my FOY heard western chorus frogs (note, I did NOT see Mountain Plovers e of Briggsdale in the green strips of winter wheat on CR79 just s of SR14 where they were a week or so ago).
Crom Lake on 131 w of Pierce: water high, mostly common ducks and killdeer, no swallows.
[Did NOT see large numbers of sparrows today, did NOT see McCown's Longspur, did NOT see any kingbirds or Burrowing Owls. Regarding the latter, I did not check any prairie-dog towns, so maybe no surprise they escaped detection.]
Furthermore, I did NOT drive GR96 ("Murphy's Pasture") out of not wanting to get pissed at all the gun activity on a route supposedly devoted to nature observation.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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