Pawnee National Grassland, located east of Fort Collins, Colorado has something different to offer no matter how many times you visit. Since most of my visits have been during the spring nesting season, I anticipated some differences this time. The first pleasant surprize was the multitude of flowers along the roadsides. The ditches lining the gravel roads have higher moisture conditions allowing a number of plants to flourish that are unable to complete with the grassland species. Sunflowers appeared to be the species that took the most advantage of the wetter conditions.
My second surprize was due to the wet weather Colorado had experienced. Pawnee is notorious for impassable roads at times. Four-wheel drive and dry roads have always allowed me to get around easily in the past. This time, although most of the road surfaces were dry and pleasantly non-dusty, unrepaired washouts or lakes over the road made navigating frustrating. Pawnee is huge and its road system is like a giant maze. Roads seldom go straight through. If you have a specific area you want to reach you trace a path on the map, get deep into an area and suddenly you must back track and find a another way through the maze-usually miles longer.
I decided to begin on the eastern side the first morning and follow up on the western end the next day. A 5:45 AM sunrise and travel time from Loveland required a 4 am wakeup but watching the sun come up over the prairie with a beautiful sky makes it worthwhile. Most birders start at the Crow Valley Campground which in the spring is a great migrant trap and in the summer has a number of local breeders. Western Kingbirds were the most conspicuous but Eastern Kingbird, Bullocks Oriole, House Wrens, American Robins,and Common Nighthawk were seen.
Western Kingbird
Female Bullock's Oriole
After mostly woodland birds at the campground one of the best places for typical prairie birds is a place called Murphy's Pasture on CR96. Unfortunately a washout less than a mile in forced me to go back and try a different entrance from the south. This road produced numerous Lark Buntings, Horned Larks, and Western Meadowlarks. My target bird was Mountain Plover but they were invisible.
Male Lark Buntings are extremely common at Pawnee
Female Lark Buntings look nothing like the male
Fox eat well on the prairie
Hawks are easily seen and Northern Harriers, Swainson's, and Ferruginous nest in the area. I, however only saw Swainson's and all were of the light morph.
The second morning I entered from the west off highway 85 and worked the area surrounding the Central Plains Experimental Station. I concentrated on finding Mountain Plover but only found the same birds as yesterday. Mountain Plover are poorly named since they do not reside in mountains. They are in rapid decline and I had hoped to photograph them but to no avail. They prefer short grass prairie with sparse vegetation. Areas with prairie dogs and burrowing owls often contain them and I found suitable habitat but could not locate them.
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| Burrowing owls often are associated with prairie dogs |
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Western meadowlarks resemble the eastern variety but their song is very different. A Sage Thrasher perched on what else? Sage brush of course! |
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