Kansas to Mont Alto, PA 11/28-11/30, 2009

After leaving Quivira and not finding the whoopers, we headed for Maize, Kansas, where an almost completely albino red-tailed hawk has been residing.  He was also in this area last winter.  We couldn't find him that night, but quickly found him the next morning sitting on a telephone pole.  A newspaper article had just been printed about him, so many people must have been stopping to see him.  He flushed very easily and flew into a tree.  Nearby, was a large female red-tailed hawk, perhaps its mate?  Did not get great photos, but you get the idea.  We spent time looking for another partial albino hawk just south of the city, but came up short on that one. 

We also stopped at a city park, where we found a group of birds that included carolina wren, white-breasted nuthatches, black-capped chickadees, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, golden-crowned kinglets, and brown creepers.

downy woodpecker

brown creeper

Along a road in eastern Kansas, we came across this Krider's red-tailed hawk.  Alex spotted it in a tree, and we made about a 25 mile detour when we exited, since the next exit wasn't for a few miles. 

Cheyenne Bottoms NWR and Quivira NWR, Kansas 11/26-11/27, 2009

We headed west to east through Kansas, with a destination of Great Bend, Kansas on November 26.  Along the way, Alex recorded the number of raptors we saw.  In western KS, we said goodbye to numerous rough-legged hawks, and pretty soon the majority of what we saw were red-tailed hawks.  We also saw our first meadowlark of the trip. 

Great Bend is a great location, because it is within an hour of both Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Refuge and Quivira NWR.  Both of these places are natural sinkholes that have created an excellent stop-over for migrating waterfowl and shorebirds (Cheyenne Bottoms is a freshwater marsh, while Quivira NWR is a saline marsh).   When I was in these places about a month ago, I saw many more ducks and geese, and also shorebirds, but neither place disappointed a little later in the season.  We saw most of the same waterfowl species as I did earlier, just in smaller numbers.  The only shorebirds left were avocets at Quivira NWR.  I don't have many photos at Cheyenne Bottoms due to my camera temporarily malfunctioning, but I did snap a quick pic of this green-winged teal and also a red-tailed hawk.

green-winged teal

red-tailed hawk

We spent the night in Great Bend, after "enjoying" a Thanksgiving meal at Perkins.  In the morning on 11/27, we heard there was a raptor center in town, and found it at a small city park/zoo.  They currently didn't have any raptors being re-habbed, but did have a bald eagle, red-tail, and great-horned owl, all injured and living in cages.  The zoo also had a few small ponds, that were full of wild/injured wildlife.  It was hard to tell what was there permanently and what was wild, but either way we got some good photos.  There were wood-ducks, greater-white fronted geese, canada geese, cackling geese, a trumpeter swan, wood ducks, and hooded mergansers.

                                           

                                                                        hooded merganser

   

trumpeter swan and hooded merganser

 

canada and cackling goose

greater-white fronted geese

Next we headed for Quivira NWR.  On our way there, we saw numerous flocks of geese (mainly snow, canada, and greater-white fronted) headed for the marshes.    We started at the Big Salt Marsh, and were able to get great photos of all the geese as they flew to the marsh.  There were more this time, than there was a month ago when I originally passed through.

snow and blue geese, and greater-white fronted geese

snow geese being led by a greater-white fronted goose

and more geese

american avocet

thousands of geese flushed by something...

thousands of snow geese

red-winged black bird

After walking a quick trail on the refuge, we picked up common grackle for the trip, and saw another rough-legged hawk.  It was warm enough to walk around in a t-shirt.  We got very lucky on the trip, with no major snow or rain storms.  It was really the last warm weather of the year for us, unfortunately!  There was also whooping cranes on the refuge, but we couldn't find them this time.

Rocky Mountain Arsernal NWR CO, Two Ponds NWR CO 11-25-09

I am finally posting the rest of our trip details, so I don't get too behind on posting my blogger updates.

On November 25, Alex and I drove to Rokcy Mountain Arsenal NWR.  Here we joined a bus tour of the refuge, since most of the refuge is not open to the public.  Highlights of the trip were numerous ferruginous hawks circling over prairie dog colonies, in addition to a prairie falcon, that flew right over our bus.  Alex spotted a snow goose in a flock of canada geese, and the volunteers that were giving the tour said they had never seen one on the refuge (rare in this part of CO).  Mule deer were also in rut and were everywhere.  At one point, we had to stop the bus and wait for one to get out of the road; he could not be concerned with the bus, as a female mule deer was on the other side.  We also saw shovelers and green-winged teal, the first on our trip.

snow goose at Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR

   

northern shoveler in Colorado

Next we travelled to Two Ponds NWR. This is a very small refuge in the middle of town, but still had a few good birds. This american kestrel did not seem to be concerned by our presence. Walking along the trails, we spotted house finches, blue jays, and white-crowned sparrows.

american kestrel at Two-Ponds NWR

white-crowned sparrow at Two-Ponds NWR

We also spotted this partial alabino red-tail hawk.  From below, it looked very normal, but its upperwing coverts were mostly white.  Alex has better photos here. Alex's blog  We ended the night just outside the border of Colorado in Kansas.

CJ scream...

Here is my little nephew CJ being scared my his mom to a visit to our parents house...again, not a bird, but too funny not to share!

Rocky Mountain National Park 11/24/09

We set off for Rocky Mountain National Park early in the morning, only a few miles away from Estes Park.  Unfortunately most of the park is closed in the winter time due to the snow, but we still managed to see a ton of birds.  We started out by driving as high as we could to the end of the road.   Here we saw mountain chickadees and and abert's squirrel.  A flock of red crossbills also flew by.  Throughout the day we saw many more of each of these species. 

Near one of the park campgrounds, we came across a group of birds looking for handouts.  This included magpies, stellars jays, and clark's nutcracker, in addition to this abert's squirrel.

Abert's squirrel

Stellar's Jay

Clark's nutcracker

black-billed magpie

Also in the campground were 5 coyotes roaming around.  They seemed pretty habituated to people and were ignoring all of the cars that were stopping to photograph them.

At another park road, we saw a flock of red crossbills fly over.  We quickly pulled over and went into the woods to find them, and heard many other chirps.  Here we found more mountain chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches (very plentiful in the park), and a pair of red crossbills working on some pinecones.

male red crossbill

female red crossbill

mountain chickadee

On our way out of the park, we pulled over to find about 10 pygmy nuthatches, life birds for both Alex and I.  We continued out of the park, and on our way back into Estes Park, we were stuck in a small traffic jam due to a herd of elk gathering in the town.

We then headed to a river in Estes Park, where we heard we could find American Dippers.  After about 20 minutes of searching, Alex spotted this one working its way up river.

Laramie, WY to Estes Park, CO 11/23/09

On November 23 we woke up to a small snow storm in Laramie.  Our first stop was the University of Wyomings campus in town, where a few birders had pointed us to.  The snow was pretty heavy, so we found most of our birds by going "inside" pines and spruces to find birds that were escaping the cold.  The first few calls we followed were juncos high up in the trees.  Next we heard some chirps in some spruces by a building, where we found an american robin, and this townsend's solitaire, perched near an open window.  It was probably warming up in the escaping heat.

(photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

We noticed on our trip that we ususally found townsend's solitaires and american robins together.  Nearby we heard a small chirp inside another spruce.  I stepped in and it sounded like the bird was really close.  I caught movement in front of my face on the trunk, and at first thought it was a mouse.  Obviously it turned out to be this grey-phase brown creeper.

(photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

We also spent some time searching for a resident great-horned owl on campus that someone had told us about, but only found an old owl pellet.  We then found these doves roosting inside a spruce tree then decided to leave with the snow getting heavier.

(photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

We headed for Arapahoe National Wildlife Refuge next, though this snow storm.   It wasn't as bad as it looked.

                                               

                                               

Along the way, we came across some ravens harassing a few golden eagles.

                                               

            (photo by Alex Lamoreaux)

Eventually the snow let up, and we made it to Poudre Pass.  This was supposed to lead us to Arapahoe National Wildlife Refuge.  In the canyon we saw a few golden eagles and a northern shrike.

              

However, this snow storm in the mountains forced us to turn around after about 20 miles, when the road started to get covered in an unpleasant black ice; a little too much for the sunfire to handle.

                                                  

We turned around and headed for Estes Park, Colorado.

           

         Estes Park, CO