Our intended destination today was the Great Sand Dunes
National Monument, but we were quickly sidetracked by a flooded farm field just
east of Splashland off Hwy. 17. On one side of the county road we saw
white-faced ibises, ring-billed gulls and water fowl. Hordes of yellow-headed
blackbirds and red-winged blackbirds filled the nearby trees. The north field,
also foot deep in water, was host to lesser yellowlegs, Wilson’s phalaropes,
killdeer, ducks and geese.
We then headed up to the Sand Dunes, ate our picnic lunch
while being serenaded by a chickadee and then hiked near the dunes/pinon
boundary. The mid-day hike was not a good time to spot birds there, so we
headed to the Mountville Nature Trail where we heard a northern flicker and saw
a white-breasted nuthatch. Our next destination was Denton Spring, where we did
our Christmas bird count. The area was alive with pinyon jays, scrub jays,
Townsend’s solitaires, nuthatches, chickadees and robins. We got back in the car and drove south to
Medano-Zapata Ranch nature trail. We immediately spotted a yellow-rumped
warbler, our first warbler of the season. Our next sighting was a pair of
western bluebirds. As we rounded the nature trail, we spotted a peregrine
falcon which stayed stationary long enough for us to identify its dark hood. Nuthatches,
a northern flicker and mountain bluebirds enlivened our hike. We saw two
Clark’s nutcrackers in trees as we left the Nature Conservancy property.
Returning to our fair town of Alamosa we decided to make one
more stop at the flooded farm fields. We were glad we did because we identified
a long-billed dowitcher, a first sighting for us.
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