I hope Beverly Jensen will forgive us...after a very long hard week and 1/2 the weekend of working we finally dragged ourselves out the house around 9 a.m. and decided to walk the dog around Martin Lake at Lathrop State Park. We checked for our Common Loon at Daigre Lake State Wildlife Area and it appears to have left...after a stay of almost 7 weeks.
At the East end of Martin Lake we saw two bird's flying...thinking both were terns of some kind or another, but not the same species as one was smaller and lighter than the other. We positioned ourselves with our spotting scope and had our Sibley's guide on hand, at the end of the dam. There we positively identified: Immature Sabine's Gull, a life bird for both of us! Common Tern They would fly together and then separate...but the gull had us fooled for a few minutes because it was flying and behaving like a tern. Once we had the gull in the spotting scope we immediately saw the black "wedge" on the tail and the black on the wing, the brownish back and neck we seen beautifully when it finally landed in the water and floated in view for quite awhile. When we realized what we had we were surprised and very happy. Paul took numerous photos of the Sabine's gull...and is downloading them now. It was quite a ways off, but we are hoping for definitive ID photos for our Colorado bird album. We were so absorbed in the gull we almost forgot about the tern. We then compared the two, in size the tern was smaller, overall lighter with a black crown and nape, black beak, and a dark wedge on the primaries.We observed both birds for around 20 minutes. As we were leaving the lake we spotted them again and watched for a few more minutes. Checked again at Daigre Lake for the Common Loon...have never failed to spot it before today. Polly Wren and Paul Neldner 151 County Road 359 La Veta, Huerfano County, CO 81055 -- 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.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
