"Old" adventures from this summer: Pawnee National Grasslands

I thought that today I would write a bit about one of my "old" adventures from this summer: my very first Colorado "boondoggle", when I went to the Pawnee National Grasslands over near Fort Collins.

This was in the beginning of May. My dad and I road-tripped over from Oregon, and he left on Sunday the 6th of May, and that Monday I took off for my big adventure! I didn't get back until Thursday. My first day of work was Friday the 11th, so I wanted to take advantage of the 5 days or so that I had off in a row. I decided to go birding a few hours away  in the Pawnee National Grassland.  My target birds were Chestnut-collared Longspur and McCown's Longspur, colorful sparrow-like birds, both of which breed there;  Mountain Plover; and Burrowing Owl. I talked to a very helpful and kind birder on the phone the night before and he gave me incredibly detailed directions for looking for the Longspurs, both of which would be life birds (birds I'd never before seen in my life).

Looking through the Aspen trees at the start of driving over Rabbit Ears Pass, which is just East of the tourist town of Steamboat Springs.

Ponderosa Pine forest up near Gould (Cameron Pass)!!! So beautiful. I was hoping I would see a moose here, or at Moose Visitor Center, which was part of a State Park....but I did not.

beautiful craggy peaks!

so then I was driving along right after the Visitor Center, and I saw a jeep pulled over near a field....and the field had a large brown Object in it.....IT WAS A MOOSE!!!!

I was pretty darn excited. :D Only the 2nd moose I've ever seen in my life, and the first moose might have been my imagination anyway--at Yellowstone NP when I was 15.

I told my bosses about it later and they said from the "scabs" where the antlers would be, they thought it was probably a  male whose antlers hadn't come in yet.

I spent my first night at a KOA in Fort Collins. I absolutely fell in LOVE with Fort Collins. It's a college town, and very tree-ful, and so cute, and I also found an aMAZing thrift store there. Oh my gosh, the best thrift store I've ever been to! I could see myself possibly living in Ft. Collins, if I were to relocate to CO permanently..... Here is the KOA campground playground. It was crazy awesome!

Then I headed out to the Pawnee National Grasslands. It only took me about an hour-ish from Fort Collins. The first field where my birder friend had told me to go, I walked for a while, saw some Horned Larks, and then saw this BEAUTY of a Chestnut-collared Longspur!! Oh man, so so beautiful! What a life bird!

lovely. I kept on thinking and saying this word....but really....so lovely!

Then the little guy proceeded to walk behind a pile of cow dung...

from behind which he proceeded to peer out sagely at me. :)

this is what the ground looked like (with my shadow too). Short-grass prairie!

I was so surprised to see Prickly Pear there! HA, little did I know I'd see it all over CO this summer! :)

Life bird #2 of the day: McCown's Longspur. Now if the Chestnut-collared was nice...this one was TRULY lovely.....he was doing his display: he would fly up, singing a flute-like, sweet song, and fly with his wings in a V against the blue sky...and then settle back down on the prairie. WOW.

this was the intersection in which field I found the McCown's Longspur.

another beautiful bird, though not a life bird: Lark Bunting! These are birds of open country prairie. Strangely enough, I saw my only other Lark Bunting before this guy, in western Oregon! That individual was a very lost one.

Western Meadowlark. :) We have them in W. Oregon too, but really, such pretty birds, with a lovely (see, there I go again!), piping song!

pretty flower.

wow! in the middle of this fence are two male Lark Buntings, flanked on either side by a Horned Lark.

then later I saw more McCown's Longspurs, feeding in a field!!!

Prairie dog head...

and tail!!!

I checked out Crow Valley Campground, which my newfound birder friend who I'd talked to on the phone had told me was THE spot for migrant songbirds. I didn't find anything unusual there, but here is a lovely Western Kingbird. I saw many, many, many of these dudes over the summer! still, always pretty.

I spent that last night outside Fort Collins at Horsetooth Reservoir Park. It was beautiful!

This was a terrific start to my Colorado summer. I did get Burrowing Owl, which was not a life bird, but always fun to see (very far away so my pic is nothing great, which is why I did not include it). No Mt. Plover, but that's okay. I got the birds that I wanted most, the life birds! 

It was a great time!!!!