The Bighorns are alive with music — birdsong that is, where you’ll discover individuals like JoAnn Puckett parked along Wagon Box Road simply listening to all the completing chorus lines.
“That is where the bobolinks are,” she informed Cowboy State Daily. “And then (Wagon Box Road) goes along little Piney Creek and it’s, you know, a gravel road, not well traveled. So, you can just sit there. There’s a few places along the creek where you can just pull over and listen to all these birds.”
Redstarts. Western tanagers. Yellow-rumped warblers. And the list is simply starting.
Don’t ask her which is her favorite. For Puckett, who is president of the Bighorn Audubon Society, the list is more than a hundred birds long.
“It just depends on which one I’m thinking about,” she said.
Atop the list now would be bobolinks.
“Did you know they travel 12,500 miles round trip?” she asked Cowboy State Daily.
And the mountain bluebirds are high up on the list too.
“I love them,” she said. “They’re one of the first species to arrive around this area. They start showing up like mid-March.”
Puckett becomes part of a cadre of volunteers preserving more than 200 bluebird boxes in the Bighorn Mountains.
“We’ve been doing that for a number of years,” she said.
-
Yellow-rumped warblers can be seen in Wyoming. (Getty Images) -
Western tanager (Getty Images) -
Golden-winged warbler (Getty Images)
Best Time For Birds Is Now
Now is the very best time to head out and listen to the birds in the Bighorns, Puckett informed Cowboy State Daily, which’s true of normally throughout the Cowboy State.
“They’re just singing along right now,” she said, confessing that May through early June is truly her preferred season. “They’ll be quiet once they start, you know, building their nests, but right now they’re finding their mates.”
Not just are the birds singing in the Bighorns, however there’s a killer wildflower flower underway, thanks to all the additional wetness the Bighorn Mountains received this year from snows and rain.
“We do a wildflower walk at the Wagon Box site, and it is gorgeous there,” Puckett said. “The hummingbirds are loving it, and the broad-tail hummingbirds are just buzzing over your head all the time.”
Fall migrations are fascinating too, Puckett said, however spring simply has more abundance.
The Bighorn Audubon Society’s yearly bird count numbers were down year over year this spring, Puckett said. But she believes that lots of birds might have merely been postponed getting to the location.
“We had 154 species,” she said. “That’s low, but it was raining all day, and it was cold and windy.”
Just a couple of days back, she discovered warblers began appearing in numbers, along with other types like Western tanagers.
“There weren’t that many (Western tanagers) out this year, but just yesterday I saw six on a 3- or 4-mile stretch,” she said. “I think we seem to actually have more this year, but they were just late getting up here.”
E-bird, which tracks bird sightings, reveals 42 birding hotspots now in Johnson County and 36 in Sheridan, Puckett included. That mobile app will work for any location in the Cowboy State.
“It’s an incredible tool for people who are coming to the area and want to see where the different bird hotspots are,” she said.
-
The Brinton Museum in Big Horn is hosing “Birds of the Rockies” through July 2. This painting of an American redstart, right, becomes part of the display screen. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) -
Painting of a western meadowlark, the Wyoming state bird. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) -
This barn owl received the Rocky Mountain Award at the “Birds of the Rockies” program at the Brinton Museum in Big Horn. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) -
Images of American pelicans and American robin. (Cowboy State Daily Staff)
Southeast Wyoming Birds Are Hopping Too
In southeast Wyoming, on the other hand, the Audubon Society determined 125 types throughout its recent bird count.
“We were missing a lot of really cool shorebirds because the water level on the lakes are so high,” Cheyenne High Plains Audubon Society’s Grant Frost informed Cowboy State Daily. “They were gone somewhere else to try and find what they need.”
A number of extremely uncommon birds were spotted throughout the count, like the summertime tanager, which is generally discovered more south and east of Cheyenne.
“We had a number of different warblers that we usually don’t see,” Frost said. “We’re not sure exactly why that is, but there tends to be events from the southeast that will, you know, get birds pushed around a little bit.”
The additional water that has actually fallen in the southeast area might be drawing in birds outside the regular variety, Frost recommended.
“You know, sometimes (birds) will look for areas that are better, and obviously we’re very green this year,” he said. “I think this year we’re going to see some stuff that we haven’t for a few years just because it’s so lush and everything. That’s always cool.”
Plenty of the typical standbys are going back to the Cowboy State, though Frost included, and they’re a welcome sight, too.
“The flycatchers are coming back, of course, and they, — warblers and flycatchers — all depend pretty much on flying insects,” he said. “They come when the weather’s warmed up and the insects are getting active during the day.”
Frost’s preferred bird, nevertheless, is the Western meadowlark.
“I love to hear them. They’re always so cheerful to me,” he said. “So, I like our state bird.”
Lander Has Birds Everywhere
Eda Crane in Lander is likewise seeing a couple of uncommon characters appear in her lawn and in Grand Sinks Canyon.
“We recently had a golden-winged warbler,” she informed Cowboy State Daily. “That’s not a regular sighting.”
The uplifting rose-breasted grosbeaks and catbirds, however, are more typical, as are the set of tree swallows that fly around her house.
“They’re just really fun to watch,” Crane said. “That’s not a particularly uncommon bird, but they’re so fun to watch.”
The cranes are still spending time, she included, and those she frequently becomes aware of the early morning.
“We didn’t used to, but we seem to be getting them more and more,” she said. “I also have lark sparrows, meadowlarks and mountain bluebirds, and of course the vesper sparrow.”
Sinks Canyon, on the other hand provides a series of birds, like cracking sparrows, nuthatches and Audubon’s warbler, along with that uncommon golden-winged warbler Crane headed out to see.
She’s likewise heard the Wilson snipe once in a while.
“They make this ‘whooo whooo whooo’ sound and they go ‘icka icka icka.’ That’s kind of nice to hear,” she said.
Habitats Always In Flux
Frost and Puckett have both acknowledged modifications in environment and bird populations every year as birds go back to the Cowboy State.
“One of the ones that we have around here consistently now, but might not have had like 20 years ago, would be the great tail grackle,” Frost said. “It’s got an extremely long tail, and they like to hang around marshy areas and cattails. They’ve actually been expanding their range over the last few decades.”
Last year in the Bighorns, on the other hand, Puckett discovered that fires south of her location appeared to alter the habits of her birds.
“They have to go where the food is,” she said. “So, we seem to have more birds this year, but they were late getting here.”
But a number of the typical patterns are likewise on display screen, Frost included. He’s seen a lot of temporal migrants, like the yellow warblers and white-crowned sparrows, headed to their summertime home in the Snowy Range.
“That’s where they’ll breed,” he said. “So, we get to see them first, but they have them for more of the year than we do.”
Where To See Birds in Southeast Wyoming
There are a number of locations that provide good bird seeing areas in southeastern Wyoming, consisting of Curt Gowdy State Park, Springer Reservoir and Table Mountain Management Area, Frost said.
In the Laramie location, there are a variety of tanks, some with public gain access to, along with mountains that provide a various set of birds than plains locations do. Around the Guernsey Reservoir and the Glendo location, junipers and pinyon locations begin, drawing in a various set of birds too.
The variety of landscape and environments assists draw in around 466 types to the Cowboy State, however Frost recommended water constraints most likely keep that overall from being as high as it might be.
“I think we probably have more species coming through than we realize, though,” Frost said. “Wyoming is, I call it, very ‘underbirded.’”
Not just are the variety of bird watchers restricted, he recommended, however there are lots of unattainable locations, where nobody is truly tape-recording what birds live there.
That makes birding among the Cowboy State’s terrific experiences for Frost and other bird watchers. There’s constantly the possibility of finding something brand-new.
Contact Renée Jean at [email protected]
