Today (2/21), Nick Komar and I decided to go birding at Jackson Lake State Park in Morgan County. Although there were thousands of birds on the partially open water we only found one bird if interest, a male AMERICAN BLACK DUCK. It was sitting on the ice just northeast of the boat launch (which is where we were standing). Just after we found it the bird flew towards the northwest corner where we lost it and could never find it again. The bird was very dark and also a little larger than the Mallards that it was standing by. It had a fairly gray colored head and a yellow bill. In flight it had very white underwings that Had a strong contrast from the dark belly. It had a dark tail and a dark blue speculum. The only thing that bothered us was a little white line on the trailing edge of the speculum, at least it bothered us until looking at pictures of American Black Ducks on the Internet and we noticed that several photos showed birds that looked exactly like the one we saw. The only other bird that surprised us today was seeing 6 Northern Shrikes along our travels through Morgan and Weld Counties. Cole Wild Loveland
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