Prairie canyons trip--ducks, frogs, warblers & heron!

Yes, indeed, there are duck,frogs,warblers and herons on the prairie. We saw several Yellow-rumped Warblers foraging in some junipers that had grown near some stock tanks (filled from water pumped from a well) on the prairie. It's a long way between riparian greenbelts on these prairies and these warblers were apparently finding some insects to nourish them before continuing their migration.

The water from the stock tank had overflowed and made a pond on which we saw a pair of Blue-winged Teal. And a Great Blue Heron flew off from a stock pond as we approached.


In the canyonland area just below the prairie, we hiked a short way to a spring-fed pond around which we saw more than 30 frogs as they jumped into the water or remained loafing on the cool mud. Those are the frogs in these pics (do double-click to enlarge them to see details) and they are Northern Leopard Frogs. They are a species of special concern in Colorado. Check out the bottom pic carefully--there are 3 frogs together there.

This trip was truly an adventure with some very interesting finds.
SeEtta

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