Greetings All,
Well, everyone is talking about the unsettled weather for this upcoming weekend. Let me tell you, the weather was plenty unsettling today. I drove east, pre-dawn, watching lighting hither and yon, passing through a couple squalls, to arrive at "The Pond" near Prewitt (intersection of CR R an CO Hwy 6). To my surprise, there was a ROSS'S GOOSE hanging about and a LONG-EARED OWL calling in addition to the 2 pairs of GH Owls squaring off. Also present was a male AMERICAN WIGEON x MALLARD hybrid and a GLOSSY x WHITE-FACED IBIS hybrid. Prewitt had 75 YR Warblers (only 1 Audubon's), 13 OC Warblers, and a Common Yellowthroat. No vireos. Swainson's was the only thrush. Not the hoped for diversity there, though I guess the Swainson's was a bit early. A Townsend's Solitaire, on the other hand, was a tad late. The rarity for Prewitt was a PACIFIC LOON, in basic plumage, in the small pond visible from the more northeasterly of the two Washington County entrance roads to Prewitt. The bird could be seen from the intersection of 6 and this turnoff. During my foray to Prewitt, I was rudely interrupted by an impressive lightning storm with buckets of rain drops. My car was, temporarily, a wee bit cleaner. This was followed by a period of blissful conditions before the wind started. By Noon, it was blowing a steady 30 mph. The waves were breaking onto the dike. So.... I headed to Weld County, or more specifically, the Weld Co Rd 59 ponds (if you don't know where this is, go to the CFO county birding web pages). Here, there were plenty o' ducks and 13 species of shorebirds (in steady 30+ MPH winds, with gusts strong enough to nearly blow me over -- and yes, some nice splots of big rain drops) 3 Semipalmated Plovers 6 Killdeer 12 BN Stilt 22 American Avocets 3 Lesser Yellowlegs 4 Marbled Godwits 1 Semipalmated Sandpiper 5 Least Sandpipers 5 Western Sandpipers 1 Baird's Sandpiper 3 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS 19 Long-billed Dowtichers (and 5 more that I left as dowitcher spp?) 75 Wilson's Phalaropes At Loloff Reservoir, most of the ducks were gone, but I added Spotted Sandpiper and Willet to the day's shorebird list At Lower Latham, Wilson's Snipe was added, plus I had a BW x Cinnamon Teal. One pond at Beebe Draw held no new shorebirds for the day, but these numbers: 2 Killdeer 54 American Avocet 2 Marbled Godwit 52 Least Sandpipers 5 Long-billed Dowitcher 1 Wilson's Snipe 46 Wilson's Phalaropes The Weld County Road 7 pond (which is temporarily awesome, but will be filled with water by sometime this summer, and then filled by boats, and emptied of birds) had hundreds of ducks, my FOY Forster's Tern and Peregrine Falcon. Time for bed, I am whipped, and have been whipped, most of the day! Cheers Steve Mlodinow Longmont CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
