Lapland Longspur in Cache County

["Kristin Purdy" <kristinpurdy at comcast dot net>]

A lone and lovely LAPLAND LARKSPUR was loitering with a lot of larks, 
Horned that is, in west Cache County today. The location was on SR-23 at 
mile 12.2, west of the road in a field between the intersection with 
SR-30 to the south and Newton far to the north.  I tied a piece of pink 
surveyor's tape to a bunch of grass on the west shoulder adjacent to 
where I parked and took GPS readings:

N  41*46.872
W111*59.084

If you pass 3000N., the road to Benson Marina, on your way north, you've 
gone about two-tenths of a mile too far. 

I swept through the flock 150 Horned Larks four or five times and am 
certain only one Lapland Longspur was present.  The longspur was likey 
an adult due to the fairly rich coloring.  The supercilium was fairly 
bold and buffy, nape was orangy, the breastband and sides seemed more 
black-and-white than buffy, and the greater coverts were richly colored 
in rust.  In fact, even the rust-edged tertials were dark enough to see 
them well.  

The flock of Horned Larks flushed repeatedly with every passing 
semi-trailer truck, train, and with two falcons passing by.  But the 
flock only flushed for passenger cars if the birds had actually landed 
on the road.  Most of the time they circled the field west of the 
highway and landed within 100 feet of it.  It took about 45 minutes of 
the birds flushing and me waiting for them to settle down again to get 
multiple looks at the longspur. 

I was actually up in that area to search for raptors.  It was amazing 
how few there were.  Four Red-tails, two Northern Harriers, a handful of 
American Kestrels, maybe one Prairie Falcon, and that was it.  A Great 
Horned Owl roosted in trees at a house on the west side of the road, 
mile 15.2. 

Kris

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