I decided to get out to Walden Ponds this morning since the cloud cover was still pretty low in the hopes of seeing something good on Cottonwood Marsh. There have been a couple of Marsh Wrens in the reeds, not too far away from the observation station in the middle of the boardwalk. They were there again this morning, one busy collecting nesting material and bringing it back to the nest, the other one staying busy at the nest site. While I was watching this activity, something caught my eye a little to the left of the marsh wrens. I saw a bird clinging to the reed stalks about half-way up the stalk, with a long yellow beak, yellow eye, yellowish sides, and some darker coloring on the upper wings, back and top of head. It was only about 10" tall, so I knew it couldn't be an American Bittern, so I reasoned that it had to be a Least Bittern. I watched it for several minutes while it clung to the reeds, not moving too much, then it flew about fifteen feet away and landed back in the reeds, again clinging to the stalks about half-way up. It stayed there for another few minutes, then lowered it's head down to about foot level, looking at something down in the marsh. Then it dropped out of view, and I didn't see it again. Looking at Sibley's Western field guide, it looked very much like the illustration for the adult female Least Bittern. Life bird for me, hopefully it will be seen again so someone can confirm it.
Good birding - Jeff Parks 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/36a46d73-d6ee-4c04-b958-709c539503d2%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
