Today I went to the great burg of Pueblo, our often made fun of southerly neighbor.  My younger sister, Piper, joined me for this excursion.  While I'm not sure it should be made fun of for being foul smelling and overrun with Mexican gangs; I will say that the jokes about urban sprawl, strange folks and having a downtown worse than ours are spot on.  I literally thought that Colorado Springs had the absolutely worst downtown in at least the state until Pueblo.  Maybe it was just driving through at five in the morning but it certainly looked rundown and deserted.  Our first trip was a decent sized SWA called Runyon Lake.   

 Runyon Lake

     It's a great little spot.  The Arkansas flows through on the west and there is one lake with several outlying smaller bodies of water.  It was hot day in between one of our bouts of rain, the humidity was on the rise, a good day for marsh loving birds.  Fisherman were pulling into the lot with us and they each spent plenty of time staring blankly at us, I helloed one who quickly looked away and then down at his feet.  I had read that Mississippi Kites could be seen at this little lake, the only place in Colorado that had them.  We walked along the banks heading east before we joined a concrete trail that led around the lake and through the marsh.  We saw the ever present mallard and Canada geese and could hear finches and warblers calling from the tall cottonwood trees.  The warblers would end being puffy little yellow warblers, ever evading the camera.  We left the trail for a bit near the easternmost part of the path.  There was a small dock nearish this bank and group of double crested cormorants sat on it, one stretching its wings after an early morning catch.  Cormorants do not have the oil producing glands of ducks and geese and so must manually drive after each plunge.  I love cormorants, they look primitive and serious.  They fly in a powerful and assertive manner, and when they swim their bodies barely break the surface, only their long black necks and terrible pointed bills protruding over the water.  They kind of remind of the old F4u Corsair fighter planes from World War II.

 Double Crested Cormorant

     We saw western kingbird in the trees, chasing each other and the finches, screaming wildly.  In one of the trees there was even a mated pair caring for nestlings.  The male screaming and hollering at us, we stayed far enough away to avoid a dive bomb or any other attack. 

Western Kingbird

Continuing our round Piper caught a glimpse at our prize bird.  A kite working its way down the marsh bank. 

 

Mississippi Kite in...flight

     I assume he was after frogs, we ventured into the marsh he had been working and saw hundreds of tadpoles and one massive bullfrog.

Bullfrog, biggest one I've seen

   

     After our circumnavigation of the lake Piper again spotted a bird that looked similar to the kite. This one was perched atop a tall stadium light with a stick nest calling frequently to another one that was circling over head. 

 

Turns out these were mated osprey.

     We drove west back through downtown and into a heavily wooded, older neighborhood.  Katydids called in the trees; their drones enough to drown out the conversation in the car.  It felt cooler here due to the sheer number and size of the trees, mostly cottonwoods.  We were headed for Pueblo Lake SWA, or Pueblo reservoir as it's called colloquially.  We were after scaled quail, roadrunners, raptors, particularly Bald Eagle ('Merica!). 

Pueblo Reservoirs high desert backdrop

 Pueblo reservoir is a confusing unmarked jumble of whatever if you're not looking for the boat ramps and fishing holes.  There seems to be one trail and it's an ancient, ruined asphalt affair.  Not quite rugged enough to fit into the landscape and not quite new enough to be nice.  Its saving grace is that it runs through all three primary ecosystems in the park; short grass prairie, riparian and desert scrub.  We stayed in the car and tried to figure out what was going on; fighting reason and the obvious as long as possible.  We never saw our eagles or roadrunners.  There were kingbirds aplenty as well as sparrow, one really huge old raven and the quail.  I don't have a picture of the quail, but Piper might.  We saw them while driving in circles through one of the camper pull offs, I yelled, "Bird!"  and smashed the brake pedal into the floor board while Piper bodily leaped out of the car giving chase to the brown-silver birds.  Once I pulled I over and killed the engine I ran after her through the prairie belting out encouragement, "Get 'im Piper! Shoot that bird!"  and the like.  After a dozen yards or so we were finally foiled by that most unique gift to the birds, flight.  No competing with that.  So we returned to the car.  At the marina we did catch a plover, I hesitate to say "mountain" plover, I'm  not really sure what kind it was, I'm not knowledgeable of shore birds.

 

Plover, this one is displaying as a wounded bird to pull us away from the nest

 

 We both left a little disappointed with the park though I think it has a lot of potential, warranting an actual camping trip.  I say this in part because we saw a lot of birds, even from the car and the few times we stopped and tried to find trails.  Maybe not a diversity of species but a ton of the ones we did see; there was also a board in the visitor center with a listing of sightings from an… unmarked time period… that listed a few dozen species.  A general lack of markings and information plagued the park. 

Rare and Elusive, the American Robin

     Our last stop was the Raptor Center at Pueblo Nature Center.  The nature center was nice enough, we didn't see anything out of the ordinary, yellow warblers, blackbirds, and other riparian species.  The Raptor Center; though, was pretty cool.  The place functions as a treatment facility for birds (they had one passerine) that have experienced some sort of trauma that would have otherwise killed them.  Most of the birds we saw there had multiple injuries and they all had head trauma.  Usually from collisions with cars.  I had gotten the opportunity to shoot three of their birds earlier in the spring at The Springs Wild Bird Center shop.  All three; Luke, Lurch, and Phoenix were in the pens looking just as healthy as ever.

I apologise about the haze in the Raptor Center pictures, they use wire for their enclosures that my camera couldn't shoot through.

 Western Screech Owl or a muppet.

 Bald Eagles with brain damage

 Luke the Kestrel posing at the Wild Bird Center (CoS)

     The trip was a success with the pictures of the kite, I can't say that I'd go back to Pueblo unless I was able to camp for several nights in Pueblo Reservoir.  The town itself really isn't so bad.  It doesn’t smell, has great parks and any commodity a traveler might need.