Dale Pate and I focused birding and exploring on parts of Otero and Crowley counties yesterday.
In Otero... a flock of at least 114 White-winged Doves were at the Hillcrest Cemetery at the southeast side of Rocky Ford, gathered in the juniper row at the south side. This seemed like a pretty impressive number to us, but Steve M. commented that it is indeed unprecedented for Colorado and maybe even places near Colorado. The checklist is here, with a few images:.
We saw them late in the afternoon as they were flushing or just moving out of the south side of the cemetery, and they seemed to mostly depart the cemetery area over a few minutes. The cemetery is an eBird hotspot, located along CR 20 south of CR EE. A Say's Phoebe was at County Road 22.5 southeast of Rocky Ford; I was surprised that eBird had no other records yet this year in southeast CO, 9 Canvasback at Holbrook Reservoir came up as rare for eBird.
In Crowley... a flock of about 400 Am. Crows at the east side of the town of Olney Springs seemed a notable number for southeastern CO, more than most reports it appears. How's that for thrills. Not much of special note in this County.
But considering both counties, and including short forays in Pueblo (Nespesta Hills Road area) and Las Animas County (CR 197.6), we collectivey found 9 Loggerhead Shrikes (no Northern). Raptors were predominantly Red-tailed Hawk (about 36), American Kestrel (about 30), and Nor. Harrier (5). Our only others were single Golden Eagle, Bald Eagle and Ferruginous Hawk. I mention these especially to draw a contrast to the raptor make up observed in Cheyenne County (not that far away, but habitat differences) when I visited there in January. On two full field days there we barely scraped up 2 each of Red-tailed and Am. Kestrel, had just 1 shrike, and there were contrastingly nice numbers of Golden, and Ferrug, and esp. Rough-legged Hawks. And in Otero/Crowley we had 5 Harlan's Red-taileds, compared to none on the Cheyenne efforts. Fun to appreciate the differences, and to see all the hawks!
David Suddjian
Ken Caryl Valley
Littleton, CO
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