First off, I want to thank everyone at CFO who helped organize the challenge, as well as making it accessible to any who would like to participate. I've always kept to the non-competitive category due to the nature of needing to attend to various commitments during the course of the day.
-- This year was no different, but I did decide to target my home county of Weld which presents a lot of ground to cover -- the last few years I birded in Broomfield County.
My Big Day started when my oldest daughter opened the front door heading out to her cross country meet just after 6:30 at which point I heard a Blue Jay screaming from across the neighborhood. I followed out the door, not too far behind with my camera (cased) and coffee in hand. A few steps down the driveway a Cooper's Hawk called out from directly above me in the Cottonwood. Needless to say I wasn't quick enough to get a photo of the accipiter though I had a great vantage point.
My first stop from home was the Front Range Landfill as it also happened to be Dump Day in Erie >> a spring & fall tradition where Erie residents can drop off a load for free, and we had some stuff I needed to haul off. Well, it wasn't like they show in the movies -- while there were great vistas from atop Mt. Erie, there were no birds. I did see one bird on my way out of the dump -- a likely Western Kingbird, but it was in a no stopping zone so I didn't list the bird.
I spent the next hour or so in my local patch along Coal Creek observing a few of my targeted species for the area including a Barn Owl and a couple of Blue Grosbeaks amongst other expected species.
After a 2-hour break to watch my other daughter's volleyball game, I then started to make my way up the Boulder Creek corridor, picking up several species with various stops at ponds along the way to St. Vrain State Park. At SVSP I spent what felt like too much time to walk between Mallard & Pelican Ponds but it did get me a good look at the only Osprey I saw all day. I was hoping for a few warblers and maybe a Brown Thrasher that I had seen several weeks earlier. However, the Common Grackles were flocking like crazy, making it near impossible to detect anything else that may have been hiding in the bushes.
From there I headed for Stewart's Pond outside of LaSalle, where it was nice to bump into Team "Owl Show You Some Good Birds". There I tallied 38 species - several ducks I hadn't seen yet on the day including Ruddy Duck, Cinnamon Teal & Northern Pintail, as well as a couple Franklin's Gulls, Wilson's & Red-necked Phalaropes, Black-necked Stilts and a handful of other shore birds, as well as a pair of White-faced Ibis.
From there, I dipped on the Mountain Plover in Briggsdale with a much too quick of a pass at the fields where it was expected to be, as I started feeling the hours of sunlight slip away from me, knowing I wouldn't have as much time to spend in the Pawnee National Grasslands as I had hoped.
I stopped at Crow Valley Camp Ground (and paid the new $9 day use fee -- in case you hadn't heard). It did prove worthwhile as I picked up 5 species I hadn't yet seen including American Kestrel (technically I had seen an incidental one earlier that I didn't document), Red-breasted Nuthatch, Lincoln's Sparrow (a county first for me), Yellow-rumped Warbler, as well as an Eastern Phoebe -- the only rare bird by eBird standards & an ID I had to ponder a bit before getting it right >> glad I captured some video of the bird showing it's behavior -- something I find myself doing more with challenging flycatchers and shorebirds.
Just before pulling back out onto Highway 14, I spotted a pair of Lark Sparrows. I then proceeded to my last stop, Norma's Grove.
As I approached the grove of trees a trio of Horned Larks jumped and flew, singing their tinkle bells as they went. European Starlings perched along the power lines, dispersing and returning, dispersing and returning. A pair of Say's Phoebes danced back and forth across the two-track dirt road from barbed-wire fence post to barbed-wire fence post, keeping a safe distance ahead of me, beckoning me to follow them onward. I slowly trod along behind, now following the treeline, losing steam and yet eagerly wanting to see what bird might be perched atop the tree just beyond the next hilltop. As I crested the hill, what appeared to be the last tree for miles and miles of grasslands came into full view. There I lifted my binoculars to watch as an elegant bird with dark gray head and shoulders that faded into a rich yellow underside sallied from its perch and returned back down again to the tree where a fellow Cassin's Kingbird also sat.
I decided to spend the remaining minutes of daylight with the flycatchers at the end of Norma's Grove, preferring that over a last ditch effort to locate longspurs along the miles of grassland roads I didn't have time for, I'll save that for another day. As I returned down through the grove and back up the two-track road into the setting, a covey of Mourning Doves bid my Big Day adieu.
Altogether I tallied 76 species across 18 checklists, adding 4 new species to my Weld list and imprinting several images deep inside, all while raising a few $$ for bird conservation.
Here's the eBird trip report. There are a handful of photos on the photos tab, but I attached one of the Cassin's Kingbird and Mourning doves along Norma's Grove.
As Peter and others mentioned there's still time to contribute, if you're so inclined:
https://cobirds.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/cobirds/campaign.jsp?campaign=300&fundraiser=10398
https://cobirds.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/cobirds/campaign.jsp?campaign=300&fundraiser=10398
Good Birding,
Jeff Percell
Erie, CO
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