We drove from Fort Collins to the Pawnee National Grasslands first thing this morning. I was so excited–last time I was there was in 1979, and I’d had so many lifers that time! It was cold–only 11 degrees at one point–but no snow! But…black ice covered the highway. After negotiating the treacherous drive there, it turned out that the roads into the grassland hadn’t been plowed. I’m not sure how much we’d have seen–there were bazillions of Horned Larks and at least some longspurs along the highway, which was too busy to allow stopping. But all the birds we saw looked utterly miserable–fluffed up and cold, with deep snows covering their food sources.

So onto Plan B, a GORGEOUS drive up to Genessee Park. Slim pickin’s again–thick, beautiful snow covered everything! But we did manage to find a couple of pretty cooperative Pygmy Nuthatches.

Then onto Red Rocks Trading Post, where our luck improved, with great looks at Spotted Towhee and several other sparrows, including a Golden-crowned Sparrow.

On our way to Brush Hollow Reservoir, we stopped along Highway 115 where Dennis Randall spotted a Lewis’s Woodpecker! At the reservoir, we found several cool shorebirds and grebes.

My day’s list:

Snow Goose
Canada Goose
Mallard
Redhead
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
* Scaled Quail
Common Loon
Pied-billed Grebe
* Western Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
American White Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Golden Eagle
American Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
American Coot
Killdeer
American Avocet
Greater Yellowlegs
Marbled Godwit
* Baird’s Sandpiper
* Wilson’s Phalarope
Franklin’s Gull
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
* Lewis’s Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Say’s Phoebe
Western Scrub-Jay
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
Horned Lark
Swallow sp.
Black-capped Chickadee
Mountain Chickadee
* Juniper Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
* Pygmy Nuthatch
* Western Bluebird
Mountain Bluebird
Townsend’s Solitaire
American Robin
European Starling
Spotted Towhee
* Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln’s Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
* Golden-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Common Grackle
House Finch
* Red Crossbill
House Sparrow