[cobirds] Barr Lake Today (Adams)
After Alec Hopping's report I headed out to Barr Lake this morning and had a nice time. The vast majority of the water is frozen but openings remain. The number of birds around sunrise was amazing, but gull and geese numbers dropped drastically as the day warmed up. A small ice hole near the boat launch had a good number of large gulls including a first year Thayer's. This was a nice place for point blank views. The biggest hole in the ice is best viewed from the banding station. It held a Ross's x Cackling Goose, over forty Herring gulls and a Lesser Black-backed Gull. As the morning steam lifted the gull number began to drop. By the time I made the long walk to the opening in the south west corner of the res the majority of gulls had left and right before I got to look at the geese about half the flock left to leave. I still found a group of 28 Snow and 8 Ross's Goose and a single Greater White-fronted Goose. The flock of dabblers held one male Mexican Duck integrade. The first I've seen showing some of the greenish mallard head color. Overall a fun day and worth checking as good birds could easily still be hiding out there. Nick Moore Boulder CO -- 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/CAEfNQ5kbw702KpPZFgKut4k11G8dsphARZf%2BCwdvGU2b4jpzrw%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[cobirds] Barr Lake today (Adams County)
My fall has been busy and I have not had much time to bird here in CO, so loved being outside on such a glorious fall day today. Nothing REALLY spectacular, except for some impressive numbers for November. Over 500 American White Pelicans are still staging at Barr. An estimated 1200 Double Crested Cormorants were lined up on the far shoreline in the early afternoon (didn't see any in the AM)! I guess with the water level so low the fish must be concentrated in available water. In the mud flat that used to be the lake behind the visitors center was a large group of shore birds... which turned out to be almost exclusively Killdeer! Over 400 of them including a further out flock on the wing of 100+! And pretending to be shore birds both on the mud flats and various other areas on the lake I tallied over 700 Green-winged Teal. A few late migrants included one Least and one Semipalmated Sandpiper (plus a couple of Pecs) on the mud flats. A late Orange Crowned Warbler was on the back side of the dam. I didn't fully pick over the gull flocks, which were mostly very distant, but did find two Lesser Black-backed (one adult, one first cycle), one Thayer's Gull (First Cycle) and an assortment of the other expected species early in the AM when most were loafing. I also found a dapper juvenile Harris's Sparrow on the back side of the dam (FOS for me). Full list at: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S20441342 Good birding- Cathy Sheeter Aurora -- 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/ead735da-9be5-4292-90de-b36240710829%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
[cobirds] Barr Lake today - Adams County
I enjoyed a lovely few hours in the sun today at Barr Lake. Birds of note included 1 Cordilleran Flycatcher, 1 Gray FC, and two slightly early migrant Nashville Warblers (the NAWA are on the boat ramp side of the park in the ditch). There were also MANY Yellow Warblers around (mostly females/juveniles), House Wrens in abundance, and Chickadees and Goldfinch calling from all directions. Most of the Kingbirds of both variety have left, as have almost all of the Orioles (I only saw one juvenile male Bullock's left). Shore birds are not many though shore line is abundant (water is fairly low), with just a few Yellowlegs (both species), and Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers (of course Killdeer too). I didn't carry my scope, but what I could see of water birds included a good size group of Western Grebes (with a couple of Clarks mixed in) and little else of note. I got some decent shots of the Nashville Warblers which can be found on my Flickr site at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aphelionart/ Happy birding- Cathy Sheeter Ft. Lupton, CO -- 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/2cae95ec-5729-4a52-a033-d4bbaa552122%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
