{"id":10505,"date":"2016-02-23T11:16:23","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T18:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=10505"},"modified":"2016-02-23T11:29:04","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T18:29:04","slug":"prairie-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/23\/prairie-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Colorado birding landscape\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/24828871059\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1585\/24828871059_c96d5191f7_z.jpg\" alt=\"Colorado birding landscape\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I couldn&#8217;t have been more delighted to be asked to the Great Plains Snow Goose Festival this past weekend, in Lamar, Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>Where?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll confess that I had to open the atlas, too, but when I found out that Lamar was in southeastern Colorado, I was even more excited. I haven&#8217;t spent a huge amount of time anywhere in the state, with\u00a0the high dry plains of the southeast by far the terra most incognita to me &#8212; at least until this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Ted, Hannah, and Andrew were waiting for me at the baggage claim when I got to Denver, and in just a few minutes we were on the highway headed south on a startlingly warm and dramatically windy afternoon.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Country Acres motel, Lamar, CO\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/25103255441\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1644\/25103255441_1bc3a69422_z.jpg\" alt=\"Country Acres motel, Lamar, CO\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I slept well and long in the &#8220;Fort Room&#8221; at Country Acres, probably to the crowing rooster&#8217;s frustration, then stepped outside to see the sun rise. An American kestrel was hunting\u00a0behind the motel, while the parking lot out front was mastered by a different surveying falcon, one of several Richardson&#8217;s merlins that kept things exciting for birds and birders all weekend long.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Merlin Colorado\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/24900876870\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1690\/24900876870_58871cf355_z.jpg\" alt=\"Merlin Colorado\" width=\"640\" height=\"307\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0first field trip, a walk along the Willow Creek trail behind the community college, was well attended and a lot of fun; I was especially happy that Connie had come down for the day &#8212; we&#8217;ve been &#8220;e-friends&#8221; ever since she first wrote for me at\u00a0<em>Winging It<\/em>, but had never managed to take to\u00a0the field together.<\/p>\n<p>The birds were every bit as good as the birders. Local Coloradans were happy to see northern cardinals, red-bellied woodpeckers, white-throated sparrows, eastern bluebirds, and eastern white-breasted nuthatches. The great looks and the birders&#8217; enthusiasm made those birds more than special even for this easterner, but naturally I was drawn even more to the Oregon and pink-sided juncos, lesser goldfinches, and the Townsend&#8217;s solitaire perched low and close in the brush. A sharp-shinned hawk dropped in, too, no doubt enjoying the abundance of passerines as much as I was, if perhaps differently.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Townsend's solitaire, Colorado, February, cropped and brightened\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/24900881760\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1563\/24900881760_459e3e9850_z.jpg\" alt=\"Townsend's solitaire, Colorado, February, cropped and brightened\" width=\"640\" height=\"508\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With a break of several hours until the next outing, a few of us simply stayed on Willow Creek, watching the season&#8217;s first mourning cloaks drift by while a Cooper&#8217;s hawk clucked and cackled from a branch above us, then took off into display flight with undertail fluffed and spread. The local great horned owls were invisible, but scattered pellets assured us that they were eating well. What was probably the same flock of pine siskins, with a few American and lesser goldfinches at the edges, buzzed us repeatedly.<\/p>\n<p>The late afternoon walk was as much fun as the morning iteration, with many of the same birds putting on a show just as good. A different sharp-shinned hawk flashed over the trees in search of a meal, while two red-tailed hawks may have been more interested in scouting out a roosting site for the night to come.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DSC09273\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/25078251752\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1464\/25078251752_2f1204773d_z.jpg\" alt=\"DSC09273\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The next morning started with a big breakfast at the Cow Palace before we all climbed into a minibus to look for raptors north and east of Lamar. I&#8217;m always a bit uneasy about raptor trips, but Pat had done as good a job of scouting as he did all morning of driving. We started off with a bang: the first of multiple ferruginous hawks, a northern shrike (with three for the weekend, nearly as common as loggerheads!), excellent close views of horned larks\u00a0&#8212; the most abundant bird most people in North America have never seen.<\/p>\n<p>Thurston Reservoir was paved with ducks, most of them redheads and gadwall; there were a few canvasbacks, wood ducks, and lesser scaup in the mix of fifteen species. The stunning cinnamon teal were probably the first arrivals of spring, and a bird I&#8217;d really been hoping to see.<\/p>\n<p>A few scattered sandhill cranes had been standing on the pastures on the way in, but now, as it came time for their mid-morning loaf, small gangs began to fly in to the lakeshore. We checked every one for a black neck as they landed, legs a-dangle and wings a-tilt in the breeze.<\/p>\n<p>But this was a raptor tour, and even at the reservoir the birds refused to let us forget it. There is apparently a harrier roost there: no fewer than nine birds came up out of the cattails to soar and glide together as the morning warmed. Our best views of ferruginous hawk &#8212; and we had many good views &#8212; were offered by a bird that blew in and circled right above our heads, certainly the highlight of the field trip and one of the most vivid memories I carried away from the entire weekend.<\/p>\n<p>As we approached the Kansas border, raptors thinned out, though it was this segment of the trip that gave us, surprisingly, the only prairie falcon of the day. We ended at a sad and somber site, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amache.org\/\">Camp&#8221; Amache,<\/a>\u00a0where Americans imprisoned Americans in\u00a0the 1940s.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"&quot;Camp&quot; Amache\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/25196525425\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1561\/25196525425_81f83d35fa_z.jpg\" alt=\"&quot;Camp&quot; Amache\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After lunch it was time for a workshop I called &#8220;Bird-Shaped,&#8221; concentrating on how to make verbally explicit the impressions we form of the birds we see. After half an hour of slides and conversation, we retired to the parking lot, where mourning doves, Eurasian collared doves, and rock pigeons showed off their tail shapes, wing shapes, and flight habits. Thank goodness for the columbids!<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Eurasian collared-dove\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/24565863584\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1451\/24565863584_6f7d4e19b4_z.jpg\" alt=\"Eurasian collared-dove\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After a fine banquet meal, it was time for a lecture. We talked about fishing in the sky, lives being saved by an island sparrow, and how you can get your own name attached to a goose you&#8217;ve already named for somebody else &#8212; the usual stuff. There was laughter at the right points.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"john Martin Reservoir, Colorado, February\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/25196532815\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1517\/25196532815_961310e35e_z.jpg\" alt=\"john Martin Reservoir, Colorado, February\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And then, already, it was Sunday. The early morning was cooler than the days before, but as we moved north on our final birding ramble, the blue skies and warming temperatures made it easy once again to forget that it was February.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>John Martin Reservoir was the location\u00a0of my favorite mammal sighting of the weekend, a pocket gopher (sp.) working the sandy soil.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"pocket gopher, unknown species, Prowers Co., Colorado\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/25103282511\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1673\/25103282511_895043bba8_z.jpg\" alt=\"pocket gopher, unknown species, Prowers Co., Colorado\" width=\"640\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The water level was high and the dam road inaccessible, but we kept checking the gulls overhead. Finally a huge, barrel-chested white one appeared, soaring over dry prairie that I hope reminded this glaucous gull of its natal tundra. The birds that saw us off when it was time to move on were more at home in the habitat, I think: two greater roadrunners, my absolute &#8220;target birds&#8221; for the trip, ran and picked and poked and trotted\u00a0along as we watched.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"birders birding Colorado\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/24569734863\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1642\/24569734863_2b10c85180_z.jpg\" alt=\"birders birding Colorado\" width=\"640\" height=\"398\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We kept moving, stopping at lakes and fields and puddles and pastures, listening to the moaning chorus of redheads and the frantic chucking of red-winged blackbirds on noticing a perched merlin. And then the lights of Denver and the airport, after a weekend when I finally got to know a new\u00a0favorite place.<\/p>\n<p><em>Birds<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Greater white-front goose<\/p>\n<p>snow goose<\/p>\n<p>cackling goose<\/p>\n<p>Canada goose<\/p>\n<p>wood duck<\/p>\n<p>gadwall<\/p>\n<p>American wigeon<\/p>\n<p>mallard<\/p>\n<p>cinnamon teal<\/p>\n<p>northern shoveler<\/p>\n<p>northern pintail<\/p>\n<p>green-winged teal<\/p>\n<p>canvasback<\/p>\n<p>redheda<\/p>\n<p>ring-necked duck<\/p>\n<p>lesser scaup<\/p>\n<p>bufflehead<\/p>\n<p>common goldeneye<\/p>\n<p>hooded merganser<\/p>\n<p>common\u00a0merganser<\/p>\n<p>scaled quail<\/p>\n<p>wild turkey<\/p>\n<p>pied-billed grebe<\/p>\n<p>great blue heron<\/p>\n<p>bald eagle<\/p>\n<p>northern harrier<\/p>\n<p>sharp-shinned hawk<\/p>\n<p>Cooper&#8217;s hawk<\/p>\n<p>red-tailed hawk<\/p>\n<p>ferruginous hawk<\/p>\n<p>American coot<\/p>\n<p>sandhill crane<\/p>\n<p>killdeer<\/p>\n<p>ring-billed gull<\/p>\n<p>herring gull<\/p>\n<p>lesser black-backed gull<\/p>\n<p>glaucous gull<\/p>\n<p>rock pigeon<\/p>\n<p>Eurasian collared-dove<\/p>\n<p>mourning dove<\/p>\n<p>greater roadrunner<\/p>\n<p>great horned owl<\/p>\n<p>red-bellied woodpecker<\/p>\n<p>downy woodpecker<\/p>\n<p>northern flicker<\/p>\n<p>American kestrel<\/p>\n<p>merlin<\/p>\n<p>prairie falcon<\/p>\n<p>loggerhead shrike<\/p>\n<p>northern shrike<\/p>\n<p>blue jay<\/p>\n<p>black-billed magpie<\/p>\n<p>American crow<\/p>\n<p>horned lark<\/p>\n<p>eastern white-breasted nuthatch<\/p>\n<p>ruby-crowned kinglet<\/p>\n<p>eastern bluebird<\/p>\n<p>Townsend&#8217;s solitaire<\/p>\n<p>American robin<\/p>\n<p>European starling<\/p>\n<p>cedar waxwing<\/p>\n<p>Lapland longspur<\/p>\n<p>myrtle warbler<\/p>\n<p>Audubon&#8217;s warbler<\/p>\n<p>American tree sparrow<\/p>\n<p>song sparrow<\/p>\n<p>white-throated sparrow<\/p>\n<p>white-crowned sparrow<\/p>\n<p>slate-colored junco<\/p>\n<p>Oregon junco<\/p>\n<p>pink-sided junco<\/p>\n<p>northern cardinal<\/p>\n<p>red-winged blackbird<\/p>\n<p>western meadowlark<\/p>\n<p>great-tailed grackle<\/p>\n<p>house finch<\/p>\n<p>pine siskin<\/p>\n<p>lesser goldfinch<\/p>\n<p>American goldfinch<\/p>\n<p>house sparrow<\/p>\n<p><em>Mammals<\/em><\/p>\n<p>pocket gopher sp.<\/p>\n<p>fox squirrel<\/p>\n<p>black-tailed prairie-dog<\/p>\n<p>desert cottontail<\/p>\n<p>eastern cottontail<\/p>\n<p>black-tailed jackrabbit<\/p>\n<p>pronghorn<\/p>\n<p>mule deer<\/p>\n<p>white-tailed deer<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I couldn&#8217;t have been more delighted to be asked to the Great Plains Snow Goose Festival this past weekend, in Lamar, Colorado. Where? I&#8217;ll confess that I had to open the atlas, too, but when I found out that Lamar was in southeastern Colorado, I was even more excited. I haven&#8217;t spent a huge amount &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/23\/prairie-weekend\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Prairie Weekend&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10507,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions\/10507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}