Baca and Prowers County 1-4-06

My absense from posting for the past several weeks is due to my leaving the state to look for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, the species thought extinct until the announcement last spring. Since this blog is for SE Colorado birding, I built another blog for that trip. The address is http://Ivory-billed.blogspot.com (but I am behind on posting as I had limited email access on my trip)

I returned to Colorado day before yesterday and birded my way home. I stopped first at Two Buttes State Wildlife Area south of Lamar. This is a fabulous birding area especially in spring when great migrants can be found there. Though I didn't get there until mid-day, it was quite birdy. One of the first birds I saw there was a male sapsucker that looked more like a Yellow-bellied than Red-naped as it had more extensive white on its back. I was not able to get good enough looks at its' face to see if the red on its throat spread across the black malar strip as it does with Red-naped (the lack of red on the nape is not a way to discrimate these species as it is difficult to see or not present in some Red-napes). Red-naped Woodpeckers are unusual in Colorado in winter and I believe that Yellow-bellied would be quite unusual for far southeastern Colorado.

Other birds seen at Two Buttes were 2 Canyon Wrens, 1 Rock Wren, 1 Brown Creeper, 1 White-breasted Nuthatch, 1+Downy and 1+ Hairy Woodpeckers, 2 Pine Siskins, 1 Common Merganser, 10-12 Mtn Bluebirds, 1 Cooper's Hawk, 2 Song Sparrows, 1 Great Blue Heron, as well as Dark-eyed Juncos, N. Flickers and Robins. I think this was pretty good for this fairly small sized area.

Late that afternoon when I got to Lamar I stopped at the Fairview Cemetery and found 20+ Cedar Waxwings with the many Robins and Eurasian Collared-Doves in the many and diverse trees here.
SeEtta