Field trip to the prairie canyons south of La Junta

On April 28 I led a field trip to the prairie canyon area south of La Junta. The eleven participants came from near Walsenburg on the south to north of Colorado Springs on the north with another two from Canon City which is 100 miles west of La Junta. We spent much of the day exploring one of the ranches that signed up on the Colorado Birding Trail. We were the first group to bird there so it was a true adventure from a birding perspective.

The ranch we birded is the Leininger Ranch which has thousands of acres of both prairie and canyonlands areas including some dinosaur tracks!. We also birded the Higbee Cemetery, the place we had lunch (yes, it is a really pleasant cemetery with picnic table under some shade trees and hundreds of blooming iris planted by locals who conscientiously keep the grounds in lovely condition). We stopped briefly at the Vogel Canyon picnic area to use their very nice vault toilet (replete with a real toilet seat and toilet paper) but didn't stay long as their was a scout encampment there.

Due to the heavy winter snows and a number of spring rains, wild flowers were in great bloom including the Sprawling Daisies (Erigeron colo-mexicanus) in this photo.
More on the trip in the following posts.
SeEtta