Nina Routh and I headed out of Denver this morning to meet Dave Leatherman at Bobcat. After almost an hour of searching, Nina finally located the woodcock right across from the ranger's house. It faked us out with its recent appearances downstream, and that's where we began our search. Tricky rascal. No sign of the second bird, but we were more than happy to settle for one. The area was not particularly birdy otherwise, but a nice bonus was three eastern bluebirds working the corrals. In spite of Dave's best efforts, the menu could not be identified. We all swore there was nothing moving and none of the bluebirds appeared to have anything in its beak; nevertheless, the birds eyed and attacked the ground with gusto, so they must know what they're doing......after the woodcock, we could not help but try our luck on another unpredictable critter. We arrived at the warbler house on Mountain in Fort Collins to find the yellow-throated warbler already on the feeder. Ka-ching. Time for lunch, and then the short hop over to Grandview Cemetery, where golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets were very accommodating. At that point, Nina and I said adios to Dave and started the drive back to Denver. Having a little time to spare, we detoured for our only dip of the day: no golden-crowned sparrow at Teller Farms. Oh well, you can't always bat a thousand or you'll get spoiled. A quick stop at Legion Park (overlooking the Valmont complex) yielded a lot of geese, coots and misc. divers, plus a couple of cormorants, but no swans. Our last stop, prompted by the informative post by Tom Wilberding, was Eerie Lake. From the parking area off 287, with the lowering sun at our backs, we were treated to a spectacular array of ducks: wigeon, gadwall, redhead, canvasback (lots!), ring-necks, a couple of common goldeneye, lesser scaup, coots, Canadas- quite a show in great light. Bonus! As we were scanning the ducks, a huge ruckus arose from the north. A subadult bald eagle had made a strafing run over a big (1000+) flock of Canada geese, and they all swirled over Eerie Lake, revealing eight snow geese among them. After getting them downloaded, I'll be posting photos on my Facebook page, if anyone is interested.
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