Salida, Colorado: Sands Lake SWA
The second part to the amazing May 2017 birding experience I had in Salida, Colorado was Sands Lake State Wildlife Area. It consists of Sands Lake and a stretch of the Arkansas River – my husband and I spent about an hour walking the lovely trails and walkway along the river.
The lake has had a lot of effort put into it to be bird friendly. Two islands naturally create a safe atmosphere for waterbirds like pelicans, geese and ducks. And at least two nesting platforms have been put up, as well as a handful of (floating?) platforms scattered around the lake.
The most exciting sighting of the day was an American Dipper, a first for me. And I even managed to get a decent shot of it.
We also saw a yellow-rumped warbler, several yellow warblers, cedar waxwings, and tree swallows in areas along the river and lake. A memorable sighting was the pair of ospreys, one on a nest and the other perched on a light pole nearby. Below are the rest of the photos. Hope you get to visit Salida some day!
Salida, Colorado: Frantz Lake & the Arkansas River
Last summer my husband and I were able to take a 3 month trip from Texas to Alaska. We spent most of our time in New Mexico and Colorado, in May, and both of those states provided some amazing birding.
Salida, Colorado was a birding bonanza: Frantz Lake along the Arkansas River and the nearby Sands Lake (in the next post).
Frantz Lake is located on county road 154 near the Mt. Shavano Fish Hatchery. Google Maps has it listed as “Franz” – a different spelling; I took my spelling from the sign at the lake.
County road 154 is a birding spot in itself. Mountain bluebirds and tree swallows nest in the birdhouses that have been erected along the road. Canada geese and mule deer abound. *Click on the first image below and scroll to the right to view a larger image and see captions.*
Frantz Lake itself is a nice little turquoise-tinted reservoir next to the Arkansas River. Here I found 2 grebes, a western and a pied-billed, common mergansers, and white-faced ibises (a first!). Along with Canada geese, blackbirds and mallards.
A little ways away, by the Arkansas River, a red-tailed hawk flew overhead and white-crowned sparrows were foraging and flitting around on the dirt trail.
(Some of these images are sized 1920×1080 so can be used for that size monitor, I kept the copyright small. I like desktop wallpaper with a lot of blank space so it doesn’t feel cluttered and a couple of these photos work well for that.)
It snowed while we were in Salida in the middle of May – it’s at 7000 feet – but that was the day we were leaving and the sun came out just a bit later, so no harm done. 🙂 Thanks for looking!
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