Last month I went out to visit my son and his family for two weeks. During my stay there I recorded over sixty species in his county including Cackling Goose, Rough-legged Hawk, Northern Shrike, Short-eared Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl and Wilson’s Snipe just to name a few. In the neighboring county I also found four Eurasian Tree Sparrows which was a life bird for me. A trip to Wisconsin provided me with a chance to find another lifer, Greater Prairie Chicken. To get to the Greater Prairie Chicken location it was about a 2-1/2 hour trip from my son’s house.
I arrived early in the morning as I figured that would be the best time to find them feeding in the agricultural fields. The refuge was right off the highway and within a mile or so of the exit I turned around a curve to find 47 feeding in a field. A distant picture of part of the flock is below. It was taken with my phone through my scope so it’s not the best quality.
So, I added two new life birds during this trip. I’m planning on taking a car camping trip to Colorado in April to find Lesser Prairie Chicken, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Greater Sage-Grouse and Gunnison Sage-Grouse on their leks (displaying grounds). All of these would be lifers. If all goes well, I plan on hoping over the state line into Utah as well. We’ll see how it goes.
In the meantime, I have been doing some birding in Delaware County and have been picking up new birds here and there. Recently I have added Killdeer, Swamp Sparrow and Horned Lark to my year list. I’m planning on going to the Roxbury area in the morning, but those plans might change. If I find anything of interest, I’ll let you know.
Sullivan & Delaware County Birder's Blog 