Road Trip Reports

Black Mesa CBC 2006
By Jimmy Woodard  

A beautiful day greeted Jerry Vanbebber and I as we headed out for a weekend of CBCs around the New Year.

At Fort Supply Lake there were a few Ring-billed and Herring Gulls and Common Goldeneyes.  Also seen were Chickadees, Kinglets, Cardinals, Goldfinch, Pine Siskin and sparrows.

At Optima Lake (?) we found Ferruginous Hawk, Loggerhead Shrike, Pheasant and Chipping Sparrows.  The “lake” had some water, but no waterfowl.

At Sunset Lake in Guymon, we found two Red-breasted Nuthatches, White-winged Dove, American Wigeon and lots of geese.  Of the thousand geese, there were Snow, White-fronted, Cackling and Canada.  The cacklers made up about a third of the total group.  We did not find the Brant or the Eurasian Wigeon that have shown up here the past two winters.

We also enjoyed a small (male) Sharp-shinned Hawk taking a bath in a shaded stream by the lake in Guymon.  A Magpie at the edge of town made a rare sighting away from the Mesa Country with the onset of West Nile virus. 

Saturday, December 31

We met Sebastian Patti and the Kansas crew in the Elkhart Cemetery at 8:30 a.m. to begin the CBC.  In the nearby shelterbelt we found Barn and Barred Owls, but no Long-eared.

Phyllis Hammer, from Cherokee, rode with us to cover the northeast quarter section of the count circle.  Birds were hard to find early-on, as Kestrels outnumbered Meadowlarks for a long time.

Phyllis uses photographs and videotape to document bird counts and methods used to conduct them.  She takes pictures of the habitat, birds and people.

We found 32 species in our area, including thousands of Horned Larks and longspurs (except for Smith’s), Ferruginous and Rough-legged Hawks, Golden Eagle, Prairie Falcon, Pheasant, Magpie and Ladder-backed Woodpecker.  We basked in the mild weather and light winds.

Our day ended early when my passenger side electric window broke and fell down into the door and could not be rolled up.  We taped plastic over the window as a temporary fix.  Jerry had a minor accident while cutting the plastic.  He somehow dropped his knife onto his left wrist and bled “like a stuck pig” for quite some time.  Fortunately, the blade missed a major artery!

After the count dinner we drove at speeds up to 70 miles and hour and the tape job held all the way to Boise City.

Sunday, January 1, 2006

After a group breakfast, we headed out to our count area.  Phyllis graciously allowed Jerry to drive her new Cadillac STS, since my car was minus a window!  It made a great Birding vehicle, with all sorts of bells and whistles, including heated seats!

My first bird of the new year was a Collared Dove in town.  As we made our way to our count area south of Kenton, we spotted a Golden Eagle, Ferruginous Hawk, Loggerhead Shrike and Eastern Bluebird.  These great birds were not in our count area, though.

In our area were Mountain Bluebirds – LOTS of them!  The total count for this sky blue gem in our count areas was almost 4,000 birds.  We worked most of our area on foot.  We found about 30 species, including Common Raven, Juniper Titmouse, Curve-billed and Sage Thrasher, Turkey, Rock and Canyon Wren, Hermit Thrush and Scrub Jay.  Robins were abundant, with a couple thousand counted.

After meeting the group for lunch in Kenton, we were free to cover other areas.  At the state park we found a Say’s Phoebe in the dry lake bed.  Our best find was a pair of immature Northern Shrikes in the same tree near the Petrified Trail in the park.

Believe it or not, we had a brief downpour of rain about midday.  Most of the day was cloudy, but mild and winds remained light.

After dinner the group met in our motel room in Boise City to tally the count.  Our total species was 67, with extremely high counts for Mountain Bluebirds and American Robins.

Monday, January 2, 2006

Jerry and I left Boise City early and endured the 300-mile trip home with the thunderous noise of the plastic-covered car window flapping in the substantial breeze.

Perhaps the birding gods decided to reward us with the flock of Lesser Prairie Chickens flying across the road east of Balko.  It was Jerry’s third lifer of the trip, joining Juniper Titmouse and Northern Shrike on his expanding life list.

Thus continued my New Year tradition of birding the Mesa to begin a New Year.