27 April 2025

Last week I missed an influx of migrating warblers that arrived in Pittsburgh but I saw a lot of birds and scenery in Colorado including 14 Life Birds.

Flowers: Colorado is very dry so most of the flowers we saw were small. The flower with the most pizzazz was the bright red Northern Indian paintbrush, above.

Our group totaled 17 people in two vans. The first van was a birding group from Switzerland, all of them photographers. Many birds were new to them so they took a lot of photos. Here we’re observing evening grosbeaks.

We saw an old favorite from Pennsylvania, a nesting great horned owl with two chicks near the Utah border. (This is my own digiscoped photo. I am awaiting shared bird photos from the group.)

Best sound was the low droning of the greater prairie chickens in Wray, Colorado. The recording below this Wikipedia photo was captured by our guide, Sue Riffe, where we observed them.

And of course there was spectacular scenery: Here are the captions and commentary for the slides below.

• View of eastern Colorado from the air: Small distinct clouds make shadows on the dry landscape.
• Scene near Fountain, Colorado: Dry land with a building and barbed wire fence. Lots of barbed wire in Colorado.
• Perfectly formed isolated “lump” hills near Fountain, Colorado
• Mesa with sandy erosion deposits that make it look as if the mesa was built by bulldozers and dump trucks.
• Promontory at Coal Canyon Trailhead. A piece at the top is ready to fall. Watch out below!
• Utah-Colorado border road. Utah is ungrazed on the left. Colorado is grazed by cattle on the right. At this site Utah has a lot more birds.
• Meandering Arkansas River at Arapaho NWR.
• Our group walks the prairie at Pawnee National Grasslands.
• Sunrise at the greater sage grouse lek near Coalmont, Colorado.

It was a good trip and now I’m glad to be home. Onward to warblers!