I hope every front range birder who was able got to go out and spend a considerable chunk of the day birding today!
Todd Deininger (happy birthday!), Christian Nunes and Tom Wilberding (who all had plans to bird much further afield today) joined me in a great outing that first took us down to Chatfield then back to the Boulder area. We started with three White-winged Scoters that persist at Baseline Reservoir in Boulder. Christian is convinced that they have overwintered in the area, and who's to disagree? We then managed to take a convoluted path around the spot where Paula Hansley reported a Black Phoebe to get to Jefferson County and up past Ralston Reservoir. This was our first clue that there were a lot of bluebirds in Jefferson County today as the below the dam area at Ralston was covered. We then headed on to Chatfield and (after buying my state parks pass) started picking through immense flocks of robins, Mountain and Western Bluebirds, Vesper and Chipping Sparrows, Say's Phoebes, American Pipits and Horned Larks that filled any spot that wasn't snow bound. We saw huge numbers of all eight of those species throughout the day. Maybe I should add Great Horned Owls as I think we had at least 6 of those for the day, too. Once at Chatfield we started chasing previous reports-Long-eared Owl, nah, Black-throated Sparrow, nah, but Rusty Blackbird reported by Andrew Spencer-finally a positive on our return passage through the restroom stop just west of the Plum Creek Delta parking area (not the one at the parking area). Now that is a tough ID (in adult breeding male plumage) to call it a Rusty not a Brewer's. Somehow it had a different jizz to it. It was really black with no glossiness to it at all. It looked right at home in the boggy swamp that the woods in the SE corner Chatfield had become. There was a very abrupt difference between the secondaries and primaries on the wing-I don't know if this is a field mark that is ever noticed, but David Sibley seems to have noticed it. Check the wings on Brewer's/Rusty in Sibley. See how much different the secondary/primary extension is for Rusty? Well this bird really show such an effect. If you don't believe any of that-Tom has some great photos. Anyway, by this time the reports of seemingly whole flocks of flycatchers in Boulder were too much to ignore, so we headed home; alas to no flycatchers other than more Say's Phoebe's. Sawhill/Walden was a soggy and futile search for a Vermillion. But by the time we had worked our way to the west side trail, the weather had cleared-one could almost imagine blue sky and sunshine (it was a brief image). I suggested a slog through the woods along Boulder Creek and ultimately got a thumbs-up from Christian for the suggestion. I think I ended up with at least six year-birds as the improving weather brought out all sorts of neat migrants. Best was a Cassin's Vireo that we followed around to long enough to get good enough views to rule out Blue-headed. But we also had House Wren (2), Hermit Thrush, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Common Yellowthroat (2), Lincoln's Sparrow (many, 6?) double-digit Yellow-rumped warblers (both kinds). When we ended up back at the Cottonwood Marsh parking area, I finally got that Mew Gull out there on the flats. (Interestingly, we ended up with as many gull species as shorebird species for the day 5 of each.) We continued on to Teller #5 (Greater Yellowlegs), Macintosh (Clark's Grebe but no curlews) Lagerman Reservoir (Peregrine Falcon on the way) and Boulder Reservoir (hundreds of Franklin's Gulls-Christian suggested 500, about 20 American Avocets, two Lesser Yellowlegs plus a Sage Thrasher). The misery of so many bluebirds at Chatfield (see Ira's post) was, indeed, distressing. But that, unfortunately, is part of the "cycle of life" on the front range. For the day I think we hit 94 species-a nice April day for starting at 9:00 a.m.! I hope all of you had a chance to enjoy it. Bill Kaempfer Boulder --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Join us at the 2009 Convention in Alamosa: http://cfo-link.org/convention/index.php You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
