Birds of note sensed:
After getting a not so early start, I arrived near where WY-NE-CO come together ne of Grover about 8am. My target was Sharp-tailed Grouse, which everybody has seemingly found. I got a few extra hours of sleep but not the birds, these two facts being no doubt related. However, I could sense their presence. Can I make a pencil mark on the checklist if I don't push hard? Also, for what it's worth, I met a nice local rancher named Mr. Klingensmith who has lived in the area 20+ years and said he often sees them while driving e on CR134 between 125 and 129 and also going from 134 n on 125 a few miles to the unmarked State Line.
Birds of note seen:
Chestnut-collared Longspur (at least 20): mostly near the recently reported S-t Grouse locations, especially on the w side of Weld CR115 n of 134.
Northern Shrike (1a) 117 n of 134
Loggerhead Shrike (1a) 111 just s of the State Line (not too many days in spring or autumn when both shrikes occur on the northern CO plains).
Long-billed Curlew (4) in wheat stubble s of 134 just w of 125
Rough-legged Hawk (at least 4): in the general area of the S-t Grouse sightings plus one on CR77 near GR96 n of Crow Valley (shown)
Golden Eagle (1) CR90 w of CR49
A&B Res #1 on 124 a few miles w of 77: water is high, no shorebirds, just common duck species.
At Crow Valley late this afternoon into early evening (gate is now open, hosts on site):
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1m)
Townsend's Solitaire (2)
Total of 25 bird species at CVCG/Briggsdale plus my FOY heard western chorus frogs (note, I did NOT see Mountain Plovers e of Briggsdale in the green strips of winter wheat on CR79 just s of SR14 where they were a week or so ago).
Crom Lake on 131 w of Pierce: water high, mostly common ducks and killdeer, no swallows.
Furthermore, I did NOT drive GR96 ("Murphy's Pasture") out of not wanting to get pissed at all the gun activity on a route supposedly devoted to nature observation.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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Perhaps someone could fix us up with the appropriate contact information for the authorities there, and the birding community could start making its voice heard. It is beyond ridiculous for firearms to be discharged along a route that is touted by the Forest Service as a wildlife viewing area.
Norm LewisLakewood, CO
-----Original Message-----
From: Rachel <r-ho...@comcast.net>
To: coloradobirder <colorad...@yahoo.com>
Cc: COBIRDS <cob...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Apr 11, 2018 11:05 am
Subject: Re: [cobirds] Re: Pawnee Grasslands 10April2018 (Weld)
I was on the Pawnee last week and there was a guy lying on the ground next to his pickup approx. 1/2 mile from his target, shooting ACROSS road 69 near the intersection of 96 & 69 with a semi-automatic assault rifle. I did call the ranger's office and as usual no-one answered. I thought about calling the Weld County Sheriff’s Office but then decided I was gong to get shot so I drove out of the area. Really unbelievable. I would suggest extreme caution when driving the auto tour these days. I will not be going back.
Perhaps CFO & DFO could band together with all of our members and voice a serious complaint to the district. I have left a voicemail with the ranger. Hopefully he will call me back.--
On Apr 11, 2018, at 10:32 AM, 'The Nunn Guy' via Colorado Birds <cob...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Hi all
I have passed these comments (as anonymous reports) to our U. S. Forest Service/Pawnee Ranger District staff asking to investigate. I'll let you know how they respond and/or act.
Thanks Gary Lefko, Nunn
http://coloradobirder.club/
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I've asked about birding tour maybe being more patrolled or restricted to shooting. Not sure where that will end with regards to comments made.
I would suggest calling the Sheriff office, when you see a true and verifiable violation of law on the Pawnee, just like you would anywhere else in the state. Most weekends we have a forest service patrol person out there, looking for violations, but they can’t be everywhere, and unfortunately, the public has no way to call them directly when they see violations. If someone in the public sees a violation and has witnesses or pictures, license plates and other information, and is willing to testify in court, then we can often follow up on that after they contact us when the office opens on the weekdays.
As far as roads are concerned. The county maintains a selection of roads for their priority purposes, generally for people to get to their homes, ranches and other commercial uses. The level and timing of maintenance can vary. The Forest Service also only maintains a small number of roads to higher standard mainly bird tour and Pawnee Buttes. Many of the remaining roads are open to public use but they are maintained at different standards for different needs. Sight-seeing and bird watching is a viable use of the roads but not the priority. We have limited resources to maintain roads. The road crew comes from another forest and is not scheduled to be here for a few weeks yet, so early birders may have to contend with roads less groomed. We are not a park. The road network is not intended to be maintained for all vehicle types to use in all places (portions of road 96). We allow folks to use some of them if they wish to, but that does not drive the decisions of which roads we spend limited resources on to maintain at a higher standard.
Again, thanks for the info. I will pass it on to our patrol person so that they can make sure they are spending some time in other areas and especially along the bird tour route. Sometimes it is easy to get focused around the shooting range when that many people are showing up.
Sorry it’s taken me a couple days to respond to your email. I’ve been out of town.
We went down an extensive public
involvement process centered around the increased sports shooting uses a couple
years back before the rest of the forest was experiencing the same pressure and
the decision outcome from that process was to build the developed shooting
range at Baker Draw.
Much of the shooting pressure/issues on the other forest
districts evolves around homes being built in areas historically used for
target shooting. The grassland does not dovetail into much of those scenarios
and we had already led the process in developing a shooting range to reduce
the number of dispersed shooters, so we have not been directly involved with
that additional forest process. I know for some folks it doesn’t seem like
much, but in reality, the developed shooting range has greatly reduced the
numbers of shooters along the roadways. In 2014 everyone who uses the Baker
Draw facility today, was simply lined up with everyone else along road 96.
The idea of establishing large
shooting area bans is not really an option I have readily available at my
level. That really always becomes a Washington Office affair along with
numerous other state and local partners and other interests. National forests
and grasslands and most public lands aside from national parks are open to
hunting and recreational sport shooting.
I would be more inclined to discuss
moving the bird tour route at this time than trying to eliminate a large area
from hunting and shooting. There are numerous places on the grassland that see
very little or no pressure from hunting and shooting sports.
Shooters favor the
road 96 area because they are familiar with it and it is the first access point
to the grassland along highway 14. We now have a developed shooting range in
that same area, so for shooters, that is the area that most of them are
familiar with. I realize similar feeling exists for the bird tour, and that it
was established there before the increased popularity of sports shooting, but
whether we like it or not , sport shooting has increased in popularity as a
recreational activity and numbers have risen sharply, which prove that point.
I believe there are easy access routes to areas with far less shooting pressure, having good birding opportunities, so I am more incline to see that as a more readily doable fix and discussion right now in order to accommodate the desires of all recreational users on the Pawnee National Grassland.
Stop in and talk with me some more.
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