Bird Notes - Late Spring 2005
by Jim Rogers

The beautiful, warm, sunny, dry weather we experienced in March resulted in the shorebirds blowing right on by Curry County on the way to their Arctic breeding grounds. On the other hand, the nasty, cold, stormy, wet weather we experienced in April resulted in the passerines delaying their return to their Curry County breeding grounds. Thus when Don Munson, Terry Wahl and I did a Big Day on May 2 to try to find as many species as possible in Curry County, we only could find 137 species rather than the 150-170 we were hoping for. There were almost no shorebirds at all and the passerine numbers were in the single digits. Twelve days later, the dozen ­plus birders covering the county in the North American Migration Count found only 131 species despite nearly perfect birding weather. By contrast, our best spring NAMC found 163 species in 2002. The big difference was in shorebirds. This spring we found only a few Killdeer and Spotted Sandpipers whereas back in ‘02 we had 14 species of shorebirds. Another big difference was that Terry Wahl was unable to participate in this year’s count!

Terry did have a few interesting birds visit the ranch in April. On the 9th and 10th a Sage Thrasher was hanging around the barn - perhaps the same one that visits there nearly every spring presumably before heading over to the Great Basin to breed. On the 15th of April a Vesper Sparrow showed up at the ranch for a single day and the first of several Western Kingbirds arrived where they remained until the end of the month. On April 28th a Eurasian Collared-Dove arrived at the ranch, possibly the same one as last year and the year before. A few days later a second one was seen and now there are four! Keep an eye out for these birds that resemble Mourning Doves but are larger and paler, lacking the spots and pointed tail of the MODO. On April 30 a flock of Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs visited the new wetland ponds being created on the ranch, but they departed before our May 2 Big Day.

As of this writing (May 21) we’ve had more than double our average May rainfall, often over an inch a day, retarding the nesting season.

Please phone me (332-2555) with your bird sightings.