Pawnee Grasslands, Colorado
In the northeast corner of Colorado, in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains, the lives of birds are wed to the grass and to the wind.
They weave the fibers into their nests and the sound of wind through grass into their song. From May through July they even throw caution to the wind. In a land where anything that rises above the horizon falls prey to hunting eyes, courting birds drop their defenses and go ballistic!
Chestnut-collared and McCown's longspurs, horned larks and lark buntings take to the sky, singing rings around their territories — and just one lark bunting sounds like a pet shop in chorus! As the sun climbs it draws hawks aloft — red-taileds, Swainsons, ferruginous, golden eagles and prairie falcons. Raptorial chaperons keep the prairie songbirds ardor in bounds — and the raptors hungry nestlings supplied with prey.
In the evening, common nighthawks take wing, great-horned owls sally forth and the sun sets behind the mountains. There are more and different birds in Rocky Mountain National Park, a scant 100 miles away. But birders find that they do not care to hurry to savor those forest species. Instead, they tarry, like the last notes of a western meadowlark's song, to savor the magic of the grasslands. The Rockies will be there for another day.
Birds you might see
- Prairie falcon
- Ferruginous hawk
- Mountain plover
- Long-billed curlew
- Burrowing owl
- Lark bunting
- McCown’s longspur
- Chestnut-collared longspur
- Western meadowlark
- Lark sparrow
Top 10 Birding Spots was compiled by Pete Dunne who is the director of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory and author of "Tales of a Low Rent Birder," "Feather Quest" and "Before the Echo."
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Photos: Swainson's Hawk. Photo © Danny Sveinson; Burrowing owl. Photo © Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
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