Edison BBS route 6/21 & 6/23, SE El Paso County

[Marty W]

Greetings, CObirders,

A friend & I scouted this BBS route that starts near the far SE corner of El Paso County (and heads 25 mi. W & S) on 6/21 and then (after delaying a day for stormy weather out there that night and into the next day), did the count on 6/23. Much of the route was at its greenest over the ten years I've run it, with scattered playas not seen (by me on the BBS) holding water prior to this year...

Many CObirders have birded Squirrel Creek Rd and the adjacent area & roads, but how many have ever seen Squirrel Creek? On count day, just after Stop 45 we unexpectedly ran into an impasse on Myers Rd just west of the Squirrel Creek Rd intersection, due to a "raging" Squirrel Creek flowing across Myers Rd. (The "creek" is usually an unnoticed dry creek bed here, maybe without even a culvert under the road for its occasional flood burdens--I'll have to look next time I'm out there under normal circumstances.) We had a 1-hr delay by the time we managed to navigate a long northern detour around to the opposite side for the last 5 stops.

Between the 2 days we had 7 Burrowing Owls, 3 Mtn. Plover, 5 Grasshopper Sparrow, a dozen Scaled Quail, a Prairie Falcon both days, and 2 species new to this BBS--thanks to an especially thriving, broad & shallow playa whose water was resonating with the calls of 2 species of frog (& possibly loaded with their eggs): 1 White-faced Ibis and 19 Willet very intent on gorging themselves. Odd that none of the other ephemeral ponds we drove past on either day had birds at them. We also had the usual high numbers of Cassin Sparrow, Western Meadowlark, Horned Lark, Lark Bunting, and Mourning Dove, and lower but average numbers of Northern Mockingbird, Western Kingbird, & Common Nighthawk, along with single-digit numbers of many other species. Only 2 Swainson Hawks--low for this BBS.

Marty Wolf

NW CO Springs