[cobirds] Reporting from Elbert County 12/20

Hardly anyone ever does - report on Elbert - so I thought I would. We went there yesterday to sample winter birds in this less birded county. I wanted to focus on the southern portion of the county, southeast of Simla, where it is mostly flat prairie country. We drove many roads in that area, and also northwest of Simla, getting out here and there, logging about 90 miles of prairie roads in six hours or so.

I can report that there is, it seems, not a whole lot out there in southern Elbert now. But maybe there is. We found only 12 species in that part of the county yesterday. Many roads had very little going on. Riparian corridors, small woodlots, hedgerows and ranch house groves, which are all sparse themselves out there, had few birds for us: European Starling (130), House Sparrow (50 in two flocks), and a few Eurasian Collared Doves (5). Out in the wide open, the Horned Lark was most ubiquitous, with small parties here and there and larger ones now and again. We had some 500 Horned Larks. But their sometime field companion Lapland Longspur were most numerous. Flocks were found in stubble fields along several roads, with a cumulative 2350 longspurs estimated. The area around Road 34 and 149 and 169 had many of them, from the places we sampled. Raptors were mostly far between, but nice ones: 2 adult Golden Eagles, 2 juv. Northern Harriers hunting together (siblings, I wondered), 4 Rough-legged Hawks (1 wonderful dark morph at CR 141 south of 18), 4 American Kestrels and 4 Northern Shrikes. 

There was one unavoidable seasonal problem in arriving out there soon after sunrise. Here is the Solstice sun rising dead ahead on southeast-oriented roads (through my dirty windshield). Wow, it was tough  driving for a time!

It's brighter now,

David Suddjian

Ken Caryl Valley

Littleton, CO 

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