COBirders, Tom, Mary France and I spent a most pleasant morning enjoying several thousand waterbirds at two locations on the east side of Timnath Reservoir today. There were at least 3 Black-bellied and several Semipalmated plovers present, along with a dozen or so Long-billed Dowitchers and many Baird's, Least, Semipalmated and Stilt Sandpipers and Wilson's Phalaropes, along with a large assortment of herons, grebes, cormorants and gulls (mostly Franklin's). We couldn't find the Sabine's or Laughing gulls that had been reported.
We initially looked for the previously reported Neotropic Cormorant in the roadside pond to the north of the mudflat viewing spot w/o success. But after a couple of hours we came back and a single suspect cormorant was there. While returning to the car for our cameras, it flew off to the NW. We then drove into the newly developing subdivision on the NE side of the reservoir. Following the existing blacktop to its NW end, we found a pond with a dead tree on its N side. A cormorant was perched there and it proved to be the Neotropic. As we were leaving about 12:15pm Mark Peterson arrived and confirmed our ID. The bird was still in this tree when we left. The open water and edges of the main reservoir contained many thousand birds. A steady stream of hundreds of gulls flew in from the east between 11am - 12 noon and congregated on mud flats way out near the west side of the reservoir, beyond reasonable scope range. Its so sad this reservoir has such poor access. Larry Griffin Ft. Collins --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
