I spent the day out east today to find mountain birds out on the plains and also hit the big reservoirs.
A unscheduled stop in Juesburg for gas was the best mistake of the day as I Birding Juesburg Cemetery. It was filled with robins, waxwings and solitaires literally dropping out of the sky. A flock of 30 or so crossbills (type 2) was the highlight. Jumbo Reservoir had the most waterbirds by far. Common loons were popping up everywhere on the Sedgwick side (12 at least). Along with good number of common ducks. A late Sanderling was patrolling a thin strip of shoreline. Two Surf Scoters were my only Scoter action of the day. White geese were steaming in all morning to make quite a sight. I had never birded Sterling proper but found plenty of cone laden pines with zero birds in them. The cemetery south of town had a golden-crowned kinglet. Prewitt Reservoir was almost birdless. Until you realized the far shore wasn’t covered in snow. Tens of thousands of white geese took up almost the whole length of shoreline! There is a rather large cemetery in Ft. Morgan that has few pine trees, despite low hopes I found a Creeper (still looking at my photos I called it a montane bird in the field, now I’m not so sure) and two more type two Red Crossbills. It seems any pines this year could yield surprises. Jackson Reservoir was also lacking in water birds. A group of a few hundred white geese was present, but less than a hundred total ducks. Three mountain chickadees was a nice find around the visitor center. Overall a fun day mostly due to the huge numbers of geese. Red-breasted Nuthatches were omnipresent along with a higher number than I expect of Solitares. Nick Moore Boulder -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/A1EF0E38-B8B7-41C8-8829-BD5F0964B4BE%40gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
