Today I took the time to enjoy the mild March weather with an excursion to Weld County. Joined by John Vanderpoel and Cameron Boyd, we started by birding Glenmere Park in Greeley. Pretty normal stuff until we finally hit a passerine flock at the end with one each of Red- and White-breasted Nuthatches and a Golden=crowned Kinglet. On to the WCR 59 marsh where lots of ducks were evident including some stunning and recently arrived Cinnamon Teal. All of the shorebirds to be found were on the west side where lots of Killdeer were joined by a pair of Wilson's Snipe and single Greater Yellowlegs and Baird's Sandpiper. A single Ring-necked Pheasant called and then flushed from the marsh.
Loloff had even more ducks, and unlike WCR 59, the focus was on divers with Canvasback, Redhead, Ring-necked Duck, Lesser Scaup and Ruddy Duck all present. The scaup were the most abundant of these, but tried as we did, we couldn't call any Greater. A large flock of several hundred Cackling Geese was a nice contrast. Also present were another single Greater Yellowlegs and a pair of Great-tailed Grackles. At this point, Cameron had to head for home and I proposed heading on to Ft. Morgan. John took the bait, and we were off. Our hope was to visit the east side of Riverside Park to try again for Winter Wren. Success this time as the bird called and sang repeatedly from the cattails in the creek that heads west from the spot first described by Norm Lewis about 2 months ago-the 9th hole of the Frisbee golf course. As we lest the spot, John picked out a late Norther Shrike. Finally we stopped at Jackson Reservoir; a very full, white-capped covered and not particularly birdy Jackson Reservoir. The little pond opposite the lakeside community had a pair of Horned Grebes, one already molted into alternate plumage and we found both Eastern (2) and Mountain (3) Bluebirds. Finally, let me thank Christian for his post on Jeff Parks. Very sad news, and I'll miss birding with the always enthusiastic Jeff. Bill Kaempfer Boulderr -- 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/SN1PR0301MB16482B9A7A2D121E8FAA6E2DE1AF0%40SN1PR0301MB1648.namprd03.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
