Meeker is Uniquer
May 13, 2024
These past 2 weekends were a whirlwind of activity! On April 26, Don and I traveled up to Meeker, Colorado. We were signed up to help remove barb wire fencing with the Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and see the Greater Sage Grouse lek, but the event was canceled last minute due to the forecast for lots of rain. Since we had a nonrefundable hotel, we still went and decided to take a weekend to explore the area. Of course, the weather ended up holding and the event could have happened, but at least we had a nice little weekend away to relax!
On the way to Meeker we decided to stop and check our trail cameras in the Kremmling area, since we weren’t sure when we’d get up that way again. We ended up with very similar footage to when we checked about a month ago, but all the deer and elk are looking healthy and we’re ready to see if any babies end up on the cameras in the coming weeks :-) We also didn’t see as many predators on camera this time, but I’m hoping a bear or another mountain lion shows up when we check next!
A group of cow elk passing through, while 2 have a bit of a disagreement.
A cow elk surveying the land while a bald eagle flies by in the background
Once we arrived in Meeker, we checked into our hotel Trailhead Cabins and Lodging. Right across the street is Smoking River Brewery so we decided to grab and beer and see what dinner offerings they had. The next morning we grabbed great coffee and a delicious bite to eat at Wendll’s (who’s slogan is “Meeker is Uniquer” - ha). Before heading out of town to explore, we thought we should check out the town park. This little detour, just a couple blocks from our hotel, turned into a couple hours of phenomenal bird watching! When we first arrived, we started the Merlin app to see what kinds of birds it picked up. Immediately we had Ruby-Crowned Kinglets singing on top of huge pine trees, a group of Evening Grosbeaks flocking around trees near the river, Yellow-rumped Warblers flitting about, a chorus of House Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Black-billed Magpies, American Robins, and European Starlings, a fly-by of Common Mergansers, and a Hairy Woodpecker making her rounds from tree trunk to tree trunk! It was overwhelming the amount of birds we were seeing in such a small area, and the variety we were seeing too!
After the initial excitement died down a bit, we started wondering across the river (the White River flows through the park) to a pond area. At the pond there were 5 types of swallows! Cliff, Barn, Bank, Northern Rough-winged, and Tree! They were all doing acrobatic flights across the water and zooming close around us. Then we had a visit from a Killdeer and a Black Phoebe (considered somewhat rare in CO)! We ended up with 29 species. I was able to grab a few fun photos of the birds, see below for some images.
After we were satisfied with exploring the town park, we headed out of town toward the Rio Blanco State Wildlife Area. We were guessing this was the area we would have been removing fencing, so we thought we could check it out. When we arrived, there were hundreds of swallows zooming over the water, plus there were American White Pelicans, Great Blue Herons, and a variety of ducks on the water. We got down the road a bit further and saw a sign for the Piceance State Wildlife Area. We decided to turn onto the road adjacent to it and stop and listen for birds. Amazingly, the Merlin app on our phones was picking up all sorts of activity from Western Meadowlarks to Mountain Bluebirds, Blue-gray gnatcatchers to Bushtits! We continued down the road a bit further and stopped again when we saw a flash of black and white. I thought it was a chickadee, but upon further inspection we found our first Black-throated Gray Warbler! See below for a photo of this striking warbler that specializes in pinyon pine habitats!
Male Black-throated Gray Warbler photographed on April 27, 2024
While we were watching the warbler, our Merlin app picked up the song of a Bewick’s Wren! This was another new species, and while we didn’t get a glimpse of the actual bird, we were very entertained by its beautiful song. Listen below:
The beautiful song of the Bewick's Wren!
We traveled up a bit further and found an area to stop and explore at a convergence of several roads. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to come back to this area and explore by four wheeler in the future. We found so many birds at this spot! Including: Bushtits, Gray Flycatchers, Mountain Bluebirds, Black-throated Gray Warblers, Dark-eyed Juncos, White-breasted Nuthatches, and even a Spotted Towhee! We got back in the car to continue on just as the thunderstorms were catching up to us. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving & exploring in the rain before coming back to town and enjoying another beer at the brewery before trying Mexican House for dinner.
The next morning, we got up before sunrise to see if we could find any new birds at the town park. We arrived to find a different assortment of birds - including a juvenile bald eagle, a belted kingfisher repeatedly fishing in the pond, an osprey flyover, and sandhill cranes rattling in the background. We stopped at Little Bear Cafe for a quick bite before heading out of town (highly recommend this cafe!) On the long drive home, we took a detour north through Craig along highway 13. We made it almost all the way to the Wyoming border before we turned around, and along the way we had some other great bird sightings - including a Sage Thrasher, Loggerhead Shrike, Cinnamon Teal, and a Canada Goose family!
Since we have a hard time just driving straight home, we opted to take yet another detour, this time taking highway 14 towards Walden and stopping at the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge to look for migratory birds. This refuge is an EXCELLENT place to see a wide variety of wildlife - and over the years we’ve seen moose, elk, mule & white tail deer, pronghorn, coyote, badgers, prairie dogs, all sorts of raptors - hawks, eagles, falcons, along with a plethora of waterfowl, songbirds, wading birds, and more! There is a wonderful walking trail (the Moose-Goose Trail) with a boardwalk where you can look for moose among the willows, muskrat, weasels, snakes, voles, and fish in the river. There’s also a wildlife drive you can take that provides excellent views of the 4 surrounding mountain ranges (Rabbit Ears, Never Summer, Medicine Bow, and Park mountain ranges) and all the wildlife that live there. The refuge has another wildlife tour route further down highway 125 that provides amazing views of migratory birds. This is where we took a couple hours to explore and we weren’t disappointed!
California Gull with prey - we watched the gull hover over the water near the shoreline and then it dove quickly and came back up with this vole or mouse. It then landed on the water, took a few big gulps and it went down the hatch! Photographed at the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, April 28, 2024
We finally got on the way home around 6 pm and took highway 14 down the Poudre Canyon. Although we didn’t get to participate in the volunteer opportunity or see the Greater Sage Grouse lek in Meeker, we really enjoyed spending some quiet days out in the wilderness surrounded by nature. We were definitely ready for the next weekend which would be taking us to Lamar, Colorado with the Colorado Field Ornithologists for their annual conference! More about this experience in my next installment! If you’d like to see the full gallery of images from our Meeker weekend, you can see them here!
