Highlights this Week:
Pawnee Grasslands on Tuesday, where I was completely
not expecting this Red-headed Woodpecker!
I followed him around Crow Valley Campground for awhile,
almost dizzy with pleasure at getting to see this bird.
Heading toward the Pawnee Buttes:
Sleeping Fox and
Not-so-sleeping Fox. Just before the fox
I saw the "burrowing owl fence post shot"
of my dreams, and was 5 seconds too slow. Grrr.
Something to look forward to :)
At Pawnee Buttes the usual suspects:
Rock Wren
Western Kingbird (everywhere)
This Brown Thrasher was in the exact spot Brad and I
watched one last year!
A few owls on the way home (of course not posing beautifully
on a fence post 10 feet from the car!!!) Grrr.
Wednesday I went to Lower Latham, visited with the Avocets and enjoyed listening to the Marsh Wren commotion. Unlike at Crow Valley, there's a little less water here now:
Blue-winged Teals
American Avocet
Black-necked Stilt
Common Yellow-throat, new for me at Lower Latham
Wednesday afternoon I stopped at the Environmental Learning
Center in Fort Collins:
Today a visit to Bobcat Ridge, where I saw no snakes, one coyote who hightailed it, and one mouse/lizard who did the same:
Towhees everywhere...this one more cooperative than most.
A Busy Wren
So I thought I saw the back of a Lazuli Bunting (something I've only
caught fleeting glimpses of.) Then it flew and I thought
I heard it. (ipod confirmed I did.) But I couldn't find it.
So I sat down (for an hour or so) listening to the Bunting and not finding
it. Out of nowhere comes this Yellow-breasted Chat! (something else I've only caught
the barest of glimpses of.)
I entertained myself watching the chat; the bunting stopped
singing. I gave up and walked away. Then the bunting started singing again.
Where is he? (Keep in mind this photo only shows a portion of
one of the two trees I was staring at for an hour.)
Ohhh.
