Hi Cobirds, I stopped by Baseline Reservoir in Boulder this morning to see if any scoters or loons had blown in. There were some biggish rafts of waterbirds way offshore and hard to see clearly. Lots of Aechmophorus grebes (50-75, all of them that I could see well enough were Western), lots of Ruddy Ducks (50-75), several smaller grebes (probably both Eared and Horned), and various DC Cormorants, Common Mergansers, Canvasbacks, and Coots.
The real entertainment was the Ring-billed Gulls near the inflow along Cherryvale. Some were diving headfirst like terns from a few feet up in the air, and fairly frequently coming up with crawdads. One gull took off, pursued by a few others, and appeared to be holding something in its feet. This seemed odd to me since those webbed feet aren't really made for grabbing. Once I got the binocs on it, I saw that it was in fact a crawdad doing the grabbing; it had latched onto the gull's belly with one pincher and was getting the ride of its life. After about a minute, the gull landed back on the shoreline and managed to disengage the crawdad, which flipped back into the water and disappeared. Peter Ruprecht Superior -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAHPXVBa1LyicmbsBp%3DkgOO74z2FSdKUjfxhWK3pn9tTsOHbdow%40mail.gmail.com.
