Hey, all.
Medano Ranch (private, restricted access), Alamosa Co., Mon., June 14, Boy George's 60th birthday.
John James Canyon, Piñon Hills, Conejos Co., Tues., June 15.
Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, Rio Grande Co., Tues., June 15.
Zapata Ranch (private, restricted access) headquarters area, Alamosa Co., Wed., June 16.
Blanca Wetlands Habitat Area (ACEC, restricted access), Alamosa Co., Wed., June 16.
Russell Lakes State Wildlife Area (permit required for entry), Saguache Co., Thurs., June 17.
Hell's Gate, near La Garita, Saguache Co., Thurs., June 17.
Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge, Alamosa Co., Fri., June 18.
Zapata Falls, Alamosa Co., Sat., June 19.
On the drive back to blessèd Boulder County on Sun., June 20, Hannah and I stopped off at Big Sandy Draw, Chaffee Co., where we saw a beautiful male black-throated gray warbler singing in the piñons. The only other birds here were 2 distant ravens. (It was hot, and it was the middle of the day.) Farther up U. S. 285, at Kenosha Pass, Park Co., the aspens were absolutely hammered by leaf rollers, possibly representing multiple orders of insects; will get w/Leatherman, and get to the bottom of this. Speaking of insect outbreaks, I must mention the plague of Putnam cicadas, Platypedia putnami, that Hannah and I found at Lathrop State Park, Huerfano Co., on the drive down back on Sat., June 12. Also at Lathrop were spiny lizards, Sceloporus sp.; plains spadefoot toads, Spea bombifrons; and a curve-billed thrasher.
I have way too many photos to post, so here are just a few from Smith Lake State Wildlife Area back on Sat., June 19:
White-rumped sandpiper, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Lark bunting, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Franklin gull, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Common mergansers (hen + n=13 young), Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
White-faced Ibises (n=21) and Blanca Peak, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder County
-- Hannah Floyd and I are back from a fun week of herping, butterflying, botanizing, and birding in the San Luis Valley. Highlights were some quite tardy sandpipers in the genus Calidris and a perfectly pristine female black witch, Ascalapha odorata. The rest of the story:
San Luis Lakes State Wildlife Area (permit required for entry), Alamosa Co., Sun., June 13.
San Luis Lakes State Wildlife Area (permit required for entry), Alamosa Co., Sun., June 13.
1 pectoral sandpiper; 1 semipalmated sandpiper; and several emerald spreadwings, Lestes dryas, working the greasewoods, Glossopetalon spinescens.
Medano Ranch (private, restricted access), Alamosa Co., Mon., June 14, Boy George's 60th birthday.
Continuing ferruginous x red-tailed hawk, at a nest with at least 2 good-looking young; surround-sound sage thrashers and sagebrush sparrows; a fantastic 30+ Great Plains toads, Anaxyrus cognatus; and a few white-tailed (not black-tailed) jackrabbits, Lepus townsendii.
John James Canyon, Piñon Hills, Conejos Co., Tues., June 15.
2 prairie falcons at an eyrie; 1 ash-throated flycatcher; 2 blue-gray gnatcatchers, rare in the Valley; rock wrens in terrifying plenitudinousness; a goodly 10+ northern mockingbirds; 3 black-throated sparrows, restricted as breeders in the Valley to this canyon; and 3 impossibly adorable greater short-horned lizards, Phrynosoma hernandesi.
Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, Rio Grande Co., Tues., June 15.
2 lesser scaups; 3 Virginia rails and 5 soras; 2 adult female Wilson phalaropes; the usual multitudes of marsh wrens and yellow-headed blackbirds; and 1 adult male great-tailed grackle. Just off the refuge, a treatment pond ringed with snowy egrets. The western blue flag, Iris missouriensis, show, here and elsewhere in the Valley, was beyond spectacular.
Zapata Ranch (private, restricted access) headquarters area, Alamosa Co., Wed., June 16.
A surprising ring-necked pheasant; 2 Lewis woodpeckers at a cavity and 1 or 2 others; 2 pairs of red-naped sapsuckers at nests; a few pinyon jays yakking out in the woods somewhere; Woodhouse scrub-jays keeping sentry along the entrance road; and a pair of western bluebirds. Best of all, and the thrilling high point of the whole week, a splendid female black witch, Ascalapha odorata, who joined us at breakfast, made several passes about the bacon and pancakes, then went her merry way, straight north, perhaps to Boulder County.
Blanca Wetlands Habitat Area (ACEC, restricted access), Alamosa Co., Wed., June 16.
At least 79 American avocets; 2 snowy plovers; and 5 black-crowned night-herons. The odes, led by four-spotted skimmers, Libellula quadrimaculata, and eight-spotted skimmers, L. forensis, were wonderful here. (Can we add them together and get a twelve-spotted skimmer, L. pulchella?)
Russell Lakes State Wildlife Area (permit required for entry), Saguache Co., Thurs., June 17.
A Clark grebe apparently paired with a western grebe; 5 high-flying adult back terns, whipping around in front of the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo range, a stirring spectacle; and the only great egret of the week. In a dramatic interlude, Hannah emerged from a wall of soft-stemmed bulrushes, Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani, bearing a wandering garter snake, Thamnophis elegans vagrens.
Moon Pass, Rio Grande National Forest, Saguache Co., Thurs., June 17.
It was raining here, and a bit windy, but we were able to get on a couple of American three-toed woodpeckers; also MacGillivray and Wilson warblers, scared off by a cretin on a motorized adult tricycle. The wildflowers here were glorious--prairie smoke, Geum triflorum; capitate valerian, Valeriana capitata; scallop-leaved lousewort, Pedicularis crenulata; and so many more.
A passing adult golden eagle; a splendid adult male peregrine falcon who several times traversed the "gates" of "Hell" right in front of us; and white-throated swifts filling the skies above the high rimrocks. Exciting on the drive back near the hamlet of Center, southern Saguache Co., was a tornadic dust devil that extended practically up to the cloud deck.
Montville Trail, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Alamosa Co., Fri., June 18.
Nice, comparative studies of Hammond, dusky, and cordilleran flycatchers; western warbling vireos, including several singing from nests, in numbers like something out of the prophecy of Joel; and a Virginia warbler singing up on a dry hillside. The subalpine firs, Abies lasiocarpa, here were decked out like Christmas trees with shiny, sticky, mauve cones.
Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge, Alamosa Co., Fri., June 18.
An American bittern slinking across the auto loop road right in front of us, sort of a cross between a roadrunner and a cat. Also, the only blue grosbeak of the week, sitting pretty near the visitor center. Was surprised that the red-femured milkweed borers, Tetraopes femoratus, were already out and about; they're late-summer arthropods, in my experience, in northeastern Colorado.
Zapata Falls, Alamosa Co., Sat., June 19.
At least 14, and probably 20+, black swifts blasting out of the waterfall; an American dipper at the base of the falls; and characteristic Western pinewoods birds like Clark nutcracker, plumbeous vireo, gray-headed junco, Audubon warbler, western tanager, and black-headed grosbeak. Western tent caterpillars, Malacosoma californicum, were going to town on the currants here; and several Colorado chipmunks (so... totes... adorbs...), Neotamias quadrivittatus, stopped us in our tracks.
Smith Lake State Wildlife Area (permit required for entry), Conejos Co., Sat., June 19.
I'm starting to think that this hotspot, on a visit-by-visit basis, might produce more rarities for me than anywhere else in the state. Despite a flat tire, lightning strikes, and a dust storm, we found a crisp adult white-rumped sandpiper (probably still trekking north, the day before the summer solstice); an adult male lark bunting, rare in the Valley; and a second-summer Franklin gull hanging with the ring-billed and California gulls. Also a hen common merganser with 13 fledglings; several eared grebes; our only double-crested cormorant of the week; an impressive dark-morph adult Swainson hawk; and 21 white-faced ibises sailing in front of the summit of Blanca Peak.
On the drive back to blessèd Boulder County on Sun., June 20, Hannah and I stopped off at Big Sandy Draw, Chaffee Co., where we saw a beautiful male black-throated gray warbler singing in the piñons. The only other birds here were 2 distant ravens. (It was hot, and it was the middle of the day.) Farther up U. S. 285, at Kenosha Pass, Park Co., the aspens were absolutely hammered by leaf rollers, possibly representing multiple orders of insects; will get w/Leatherman, and get to the bottom of this. Speaking of insect outbreaks, I must mention the plague of Putnam cicadas, Platypedia putnami, that Hannah and I found at Lathrop State Park, Huerfano Co., on the drive down back on Sat., June 12. Also at Lathrop were spiny lizards, Sceloporus sp.; plains spadefoot toads, Spea bombifrons; and a curve-billed thrasher.
I have way too many photos to post, so here are just a few from Smith Lake State Wildlife Area back on Sat., June 19:
White-rumped sandpiper, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Lark bunting, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Franklin gull, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Common mergansers (hen + n=13 young), Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
White-faced Ibises (n=21) and Blanca Peak, Smith Lake State Wildlife Area, Costilla Co., Sat., June 19, 2021. Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder County
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