Date: 9/2/25 9:05 pm From: Ted Floyd <tedfloyd73...> Subject: [cobirds] Bonkers day in Grand Co., Sept. 1, & other stuff
Hey, all.
Yesterday morning, Mon., Labor Day, Sept. 1, on the drive back from the
14th annual Yampa Valley Crane Festival, I stopped off at the Wolford
Reservoir Overlook, Grand Co., where I beheld an armada of waterskiers and
practically no birds at all. So I tried my luck at the Pass Creek inlet off
U.S. 40 a very short ways south of the overlook. Right away, I saw seven *Baird
sandpipers,* uncommon in Grand Co. and a county lifer for me. The flock put
up, then just as quickly put down with two quite unexpected *pectoral
sandpipers,* rare in Grand Co. and another county lifer. Birding is funny:
the disheartening spectacle of all those waterskiers one moment, the thrill
of a couple of county lifers the next.
But that flock of midsize calidrinids was the mere cherry on top of an
extraordinary morning in Grand Co. Earlier in the day, at an undisclosed
location[*] in the Routt National Forest, I had wandered a very short
distance from the vehicle to take care of business (morning infusion of
mate...diuresis...), when what should I see on the forest service road,
directly right in front of me, but a magnificent gray wolf, *Canis lupus*.
Birding is funny indeed: One moment I'm taking in the stillness and
near-birdlessness of a chilly morning in the Colorado high country in early
Sept.; the next, I'm staring straight into the gaze of a wolf, in what was
surely one of the most electrifying instants in my entire life.
Let's see, what else? Windy Gap Reservoir, west of Granby a bit, had
decent-looking shorebird habitat, but no shorebirds at all. It was full of
other birds, though, including the usual late-summer slug of piscivores,
among them 51 *ring-necked ducks* and 4 *lesser scaup.*
The Grand Co. high country was overrun, felicitously so, with *Canada jays.*
Saw them at every stop. And, with apologies to Tony Leukering (sorry, not
sorry), I snuck this individual onto my Grand Co. eBird trip report for the
day:
[image: y1 CaJa.png]
I alluded at the outset to the Yampa Valley Crane Festival. It was
wonderful. Highlights for me, all from that productive stretch of U.S. 40
in Routt Co. between Steamboat Springs and Hayden, inclusive, with slight
detours for Stagecoach Reservoir (south of Steamboat) and Jimmy Dunn Gulch
(north of Hayden), were the following: multiple *Solitary* & *Least
sandpipers* (both county lifers for me—hey, shorebirds are hard, in my
experience, in Routt Co.); a magnificently vocal *golden eagle* on the
lonely steppes around Jimmy Dunn; a lowland, presumed-migrant *olive-sided
flycatcher; *1 *veery *& 5* Swainson thrushes;* a *Nashville warbler,*
3 *American
redstarts,* and 3 *Townsend warblers; *and 3* evening grosbeaks. *The Yampa
River Botanic Park, right in Steamboat, had goodly numbers of *Calliope,
Rufous,* & *Broad-tailed hummingbirds;* the Yampavian Ranch outside Hayden
had a *Black-chinned. *And nice numbers of common migrants & summer
residents during my three full days in the Steamboat–Hayden area, as *per*
the eBird trip report tally functionality: 239 *sandhill cranes; *34 *Wilson
snipes;* 48 *western wood-pewees *and 14* eastern kingbirds;* 18 *western
warbling-vireos;* 1,497 *violet-green swallows,* the majority of them
during a rainstorm fallout at Stagecoach; 4 *marsh wrens;* 17 *gray
catbirds;* 49 *savannah sparrows;* 9 *green-tailed towhees;* 8 *orange-crowned
warblers,* 34 *common yellowthroats, *and 31 *Wilson warblers;* and 27 *western
tanagers.*
Here is a *Swainson hawk,* just outside Hayden, chowing down on perhaps its
last supper, a smooth green snake, *Opheodrys vernalis*, before embarking
on the long haul down to the Argentine:
[image: y2 SwHa.jpg]
Here's a long-tailed weasel, *Neogale frenata*, a. k. a. The Big Stoat, who
kept me company at the bunk house where I spent the holiday weekend:
[image: y03 stoat.jpg]
And here's one of the many leopard frogs, *Lithobates pipiens*,
gallivanting at the edge of a little pond just north of where The Big Stoat
and I were lodged:
[image: y4 frog.jpg]
Kudos and appreciation to the board and staff of the Colorado Crane
Conservation Coalition for putting on yet another excellent crane festival!
Ted Floyd
Lafayette, Boulder Co.
[*]There is a bit of sensitivity regarding the precise location of the
wolf. Hence my georeferential vagueness in the matter. Agency biologists
are on it. We got this.
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