The 12th running of the Flagler CBC was held Dec 24, Christmas Eve. Those turning out for this remote (two hours east of Denver) count deserve special recognition and I want to thank Kyle Carlsen, Renee Casias and Elaine Wagner for their day in the field and Steve Larson for extending his work day earlier in the week scouting portions of the count circle. Steve's advice "look for longspurs in corn stubble" was well taken.
Our goal was to maintain Flagler's status as the longspur capital of the world, a title the count has reportedly held four times in the past. It is, of course, too early to tell how we fared compared to other 2022/23 counts but we found Lapland longspurs were in short supply. Only one team was able to break the thousand bird mark and we ended the day with a mere 3189 in total.
Although disheartened by our longspur tally, we were elated to find and share the first Bohemian Waxwings seen in Kit Carson County in more than two decades. In addition to this first for the count, we discovered three other new species: 2 Brown Thrashers, and single White-winged and African collared doves. A total of 34 species we found by the teams!
Happy Holidays
Doug Kibbe Compiler
Littleton, Co.
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