Morgan/Weld Easter Birding
William H Kaempfer
Tina Jones and I went out on the NE plains today for grassland and water birds. Ponds are full of dabbling ducks, but diving ducks were harder to find. To start the day we had a FOS Swainson’s Hawk at Ireland Reservoir between Hudson and Keansburg. We continued on to Andrick SWA and Jackson Reservoir; the former was full of ducks with a heavy dose of American White Pelicans plus 3 or 4 Bonaparte’s Gulls. Three Northern Harriers were “messing around” in the area, too. Jackson was not very active other than Ring-billed Gulls and Western Grebes, but there was a small group of 9 Snow Geese way out on the water.
We headed north from Jackson, and made a snap decision to try for longspurs noting that Briggsdale is about as close to Jackson Res. as it is to anything else! On the way we had another Swainson’s in Weld, just beyond the NW corner of Morgan County. At Murphy’s Pasture we had a smattering of McCown’s Longspurs, and then we accidentally flushed a group of about 15 along the road being observed by a visitor from Alabama. He accepted our apology with such grace that he pointed up on to a spot where he had seen Chestnut-collareds as well. We backtracked to WCR 86 just west of WCR 105 where we found said birds. (Unlike Mark Miller’s trip to Washington County we could not add a Mountain Plover.)
Then we turned for home via the Loloff/Latham area. Loloff’s resident Black-necked Stilts were present at the north end while the playa on the south side of WCR 48 at Lower Latham not only had another stilt flying around, it had three Lesser Yellowlegs joining a couple of Greaters plus four Baird’s Sandpipers.
Bill Kaempfer
Boulder
