Karval Area, Lincoln County

[ROSS...@aol.com]

We ran our Breeding Bird Survey Route that starts on Lincoln County Road U 10 miles east of Karval and ends on road T 13 miles west of Karval.  Most of the area is terribly dry and the western part is even worse.  I felt bird numbers were way down, some of the stops I had to listen very hard to detect any birds at all.  Horned Larks had already fledged young and provided more than 1/3 of all birds counted.  Mockingbirds were prominent because they could  be heard a long way away.  One bright spot was a pond on road U  about a mile east of road 35.  Here we ate lunch while scouting for the count and it was full of birds:  about 50 White-rumped Sandpipers, 20 Stilt Sandpipers, 2 Bairds Sandpipers, 1 Semipalmated Sandpiper, 1 Greater Yellowlegs, 30 Black Terns (all presumably migrants) and 3 pair of Black-necked Stilts, 7 pair of Avocets, 1 American Coot, 1 White-face Ibis, 1 Great Blue Heron.  (Only a few of those were seen during the 3 minute count period when we ran the count.) Pairs of Mountain Plovers were seen south of road T 1/2 mile east of road 27 and SE of intersection of T and 25.  2 Golden Eagles flew out of a tree at T and 19 and went north. This was our first year on this route and we look forward to seeing it in (hopefully) wetter years.  Bill and Inez Prather, Longmont