Hello, Birders. Steve Mlodinow and I spent a coupla hours at rainy Boulder Reservoir, Boulder County, earlier today, Thursday, May 12th. We spent all our time in the muddy--downright inundated in places--stretches along the northwest shore of the rez.
Almost immediately, Steve found what sure looked good to us for an adult male MEXICAN DUCK. Both of us will be sending independently written descriptions to the Colorado Bird Records Committee. We spent at least an hour with the bird, eventually flushing it. But I wouldn't be surprised if it returns to hang out for another day or so. FYI, the bird ranged along the shore from around 40.084951 N, 105.228446 W south to around 40.081946 N, 105.229261 W. Steve likes weird ducks, and he also made the call on a nice adult male CINNAMON X BLUE-WINGED TEAL hybrid. Of additional interest was a GREEN-WINGED TEAL showing a white horizontal stripe suggestive of Common Teal; but everything else about the bird looked normal for a Green-winged Teal, so we called it a Green-winged Teal with an odd mark. Such things do happen... An interesting bird was a BREWER'S SPARROW with strongly contrasting facial features, and an overal darkish and grayish aspect about it. I see ~1 of these odd Brewer's Sparrows per spring in Colorado, typically in mid-May, and I wonder if they are representatives of what is currently classified as the -taverneri- subspecies of Brewer's Sparrow, regarded by some as a separate species, the Timberline Sparrow. We did find one "normal" (non-hybrid, non-subspecies, non-problematic) Boulder County goodie: a NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD in the parking lot to the north access to the rez. (That's my first Boulder County mocker in 5+ years.) In general, it was pretty birdy out there. Some other birds we saw at the rez included 1 AMERICAN BITTERN; 3 VIRGINIA RAILS; 7 LONG-BILLED DOWITCHERS and at least a dozen WILSON'S PHALAROPES; a great mass of 6 species of swallows out over the rez proper; 20+ MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRDS; several flyover AMERICAN PIPITS; ORANGE-CROWNED, MYRTLE, and AUDUBON'S WARBLERS; 2 GREEN-TAILED TOWHEES; and a goodly presence of common sparrow species. A special treat was hearing the winnowing of WILSON'S SNIPES the whole time we were there; that has to be one of the spookiest sounds. ------------------------------- Ted Floyd Editor, Birding Blog: http://tinyurl.com/4n6qswt Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/2ejzlzv Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/2wkvwxs ------------------------------- -- 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.
