This morning I did my Flagler BBS route in Kit Carson County which was very dry (recent Front-range storms died out at about Limon), but still pretty active. The route follows KC-CR 7 from the Washington County line 12 miles until it dead-ends at KC-CR DD. Then it skips over a mile to road 6 and follows it to CR D into Flagler (the bird-seed capital of the world) and then follows road 5 across I-70 to the end of the route.
Western Meadowlark and Horned Lark were present at virtually all 50 stops outside of the two in the town of Flagler itself. Lark Bunting and Ring-necked Pheasant were also fairly common. There were no playas that were even slightly damp, but oddly my only two new route birds were White-faced Ibis (3) and Canada Goose. The first were in a feedlot “pond” and the second was at the golf course. A small handful of Grasshopper Sparrows (less than normal), Cassin’s Sparrows (about normal) and Dickcissels (3, but that’s more than normal) were nice, as was a Brown Thrasher carrying food right outside Flagler itself. I had far more Swainson’s Hawks than usual, but one may have been playing tag with me at three successive stops, and a couple of Burrowing Owls in one of the few remaining prairies on the route (crop land is increasing). But that field has experienced a massive population explosion of black-tailed prairie dogs; easily several hundred, most very tiny young ones. Good birds in the past that were missed include Bell’s Vireo (1 time) and Mountain Plover (about 25% of the time). I should note that there are a couple of hummingbird feeders up in Flagler that may be in active use, but I saw nothing visiting.
Bill Kaempfer
Boulder
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