Colorado Birding

Costilla County
Author(s):  Mark Peterson, Andrew Spencer
County Seat: San Luis
Size: 1,227 square miles
Low Elevation: 7,295 ft. - Rio Grande River on the NM border
High Elevation: 14,345 ft. - Blanca Peak
Best Birds: Bendire's Thrasher (1993), Black Phoebe (1996)
Checklist: Costilla County Checklist
Introduction: Costilla County is home to the oldest continually inhabited town in Colorado, the southernmost fourteen-thousand-foot peak in the US, and one seriously messed up road-numbering system. What it is not home to is public property. Because the entire county was created out of the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, public property is limited to three SWAs (all reservoirs) and a tiny piece of land on the Huerfano/Las Animas lines. An entire mountain range almost completely limited to the county (the Culebra Range of the Sangres) is privately owned! Despite this great shortcoming, Costilla can be a productive county to bird. The SWAs are often birdy, and many privately owned areas can be birded from the road. Habitat in the county varies from agricultural lands to sagebrush flats, PJ woodland, high mountain habitats of all descriptions (though mostly hard to access), and the aforementioned decent lakes and reservoirs.

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