CoBirders,
I went to Union Reservoir with my son at 11:45 this morning until 12:45. It
was hard to see anything from the north side so we viewed from the south side
near the remote control airplane strip. On my first scan of the lake, I found
the RED-THROATED LOON reported by Nathan Pieplow earlier this week. It looked
to be a juvenile as the back seemed grayer than I would expect to see on an
adult bird. This is due to the less dotted and more scalloped back pattern. I
cannot be 100% sure of the age of this bird due to heat waves but my overall
impression was a juvenile. The Red-throated Loon initially gave me the
impression of Pacific/Arctic Loon, but this impression was removed when I was
finally able to get a good size comparison with the Western Grebes (nearly the
same size) and when seeing how much white came out of the water on the bird's
sides. There was no gray from the bird's back extending to the water like
would be expected of an Arctic Loon and
Pacific should have all black or gray sides, which this bird did not. I am
not suggesting that the bird seen earlier by others was not an Pacific/Arctic
Loon, I am just making people aware that this Red-throated Loon could be
confusing. I did NOT see any other loons on the lake, even though Christian
Nunes reported a Common Loon this morning. Union Reservoir has been very tough
for finding loons recently. Make sure to spend a lot of time scanning the lake
as I have been to Union three or four times recently and have had mixed luck
even within a single visit finding and re-finding any loons.
Birds seen or heard today included:
Red-throated Loon
Western Grebes (100s; didn't even think to be looking for Clark's but they
could be there, I was too focused on loon hunting)
Horned Grebes (15+)
Eared Grebes (3+)
25 American White Pelicans
Ring-billed Gulls
Herring Gull (1 immature)
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
American Wigeon
Gadwall
Bufflehead (3)
Common Merganser (1 female)
Ruddy Duck (8)
Red-tailed Hawk
Bald Eagle (2)
Golden Eagle (1)
American Kestrel
Northern Flicker
European Starling
Eurasian Collared-Doves
Horned Lark
Red-winged Blackbird
House Sparrow
Bryan Guarente
Instructional Designer
The COMET Program
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, CO
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Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/
Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/
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