Report from Lamar (Prowers) for April 23-29:
The tornados were exciting, or so they say. I slept right thru it all, including the town siren, 585 lightning strikes in one 15-minute stretch (according to one of the Denver news reports), and fierce winds/rain. They say tornados went both east and west of town, but luckily spared almost everything (except about 100 power poles) and everybody. Electricity was out in Lamar from about 1:30am to 6pm on the 28th. I woke up that morning dreaming of Painted Buntings, Swainson's Warblers, and Whip-poor-wills sitting around in the streets. But the only species that seemed to have fallen out of the storm clouds was Say's Phoebe (at least 12 seen, with zero observed in the 5 days prior).
At any rate, I ended up with 98 species for the Lamar area, which compares with 135 during roughly this same week in 2010. In general, I would say things were very slow (LCC especially so), but beginning to pick up. No vireos, no orioles, very few warblers, very few thrushes, only 2 buntings, only 3 Ruby-crowned Kinglets (together at one place for a few days, no others), only 1 gnatcatcher, 1 grosbeak, no Broad-winged Hawks, no empids, good numbers of sparrows (including so many Gambel's white-crowns I found myself wishing for anything else, even one with a black lore). The habitat looks great. The insects are out (including zillions of Army Cutworm moths (aka "millers")). If the birds arrive, they will have all the necessary accessories for migratory travel.
Best birds this week were in Jane Stulp's yard, which can be sleuthed on eBird. Of course, this major farm operation is private, prior permission is requested, and Jane is most gracious when home and agribusiness allows visitors.
Outside the Stulp yard I had:
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (1 young male at Fairmount Cemetery (FC) on both 4/23 and 4/24)
Northern Parula (1 non-singing adult female at FC on 4/28, mostly in the elms among the north-south pine row east and uphill from the entry)
Upland Sandpiper (1 flew over the Lamar High School football fields, called as if to land, and kept on going on 4/28)
Long-eared Owl (1 hanging out at the south end of the Lamar High School windbreak on 4/27 and 4/28)
Barn Owl (in a private barn north of town, in a nest box)
Northern Cardinal (at least 3 singing males in the woods east of Lamar Community College, presumably females are on nests)
Red-bellied Woodpecker (at least 2, maybe as many as 4, at various places including LCC, Willow Creek Park, and FC)
Field Sparrow (1 in the LHS windbreak on 4/27, 1 singing in a private yard east of Wiley on 4/28). The one at LHS was a "western".
Cassin's Sparrows back in appropriate sand sage and other scrub-prairie habitats
White-winged Dove (as many as 3 in a private yard in Willow Valley subdivision east of Willow Creek Park, also seen and heard other places including Riverside Cemetery on Maple Street a mile or so east of Main)
Olive-sided Flycatcher (1 imm. at Tempel's Grove on 4/28 (Bent CR35 about 3.2 miles north of CR SS, stay on the ditch road, park on the west side but don't block access to gas pump or hay piles))
Eastern Phoebe (Tempel's Grove 4/22 to 4/27 but may have left when the water level in the canal dropped to zero)
The dove population in Lamar is truly phenomenal. I have heard many birders say/speculate collared-doves are hurting Mourning Doves. That does NOT seem to be the case in Lamar. Of note, but not necessarily related, the local Inca Dove population present a few years ago seems to have disappeared.
Nothing unusual at Last Chance today on the way home.
I have never seen so many Red Admiral butterflies (larval food plant being nettles) as have been active all along the eastern plains in the last week.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
