Local birding trails open for visitors

    Just in time for summer, Colorado Parks & Wildlife has completed the Eastern Plains leg of the Colorado Birding Trail, which includes destinations in Phillips, Logan, Sedgwick and Yuma counties.
    The Colorado Birding Trail is a network of driving trails, divided into the Western Colorado, Rocky Mountains and Eastern Plains regions. The program boasts 54 curated day trips and a catalog of more than 800 birdwatching locations.
    The new trails are being promoted as part of the Year of the Bird — a national conservation effort honoring the 100-year anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
    Two of the trails, the Greater Prairie-Chicken and Sandsage trails, start less than an hour from Holyoke, and a third, the Prairie Oases Trail, starts in Orchard and follows the South Platte River north into Logan County.
    “Here you have some of the most populated areas of the state, yet there is quality wildlife habitat you can explore not too far from home,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s statewide public programs coordinator Mary McCormac said in a recent press release.
    The Sandsage Trail takes visitors on a tour of northeast Colorado’s state wildlife areas. The trail starts a few miles north of Crook, in the Duck Creek State Wildlife Area. It then curves southeast, through Phillips County, before cutting north through Holyoke and Julesburg and ending in the Red Lion State Wildlife Area, about 8 miles from the start.
    Destinations near Holyoke include the Frenchman Creek and Sand Draw State Wildlife Areas, as well as the Phillips County sandhills.

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