Greetings,
Yesterday I wandered around w. Weld County, dipping into Larimer for the spectacle that is Tinmath Res., happening into 112 species in the process (sorry for the delayed post, per AOL I sent it, but it never arrived at COBIRDS) The rarest finds of the day were mostly flycatchers: At Norma's Grove, just to the e. of the intersection of WCR 57 and WCR 100, there was a family group of CASSIN'S KINGBIRDS, with two stubby-tailed young being fed by their parents. Nearby, a family of 4 Western Kingbirds and a family of 3 Eastern Kingbirds were also present. The Cassin's were calling nearly continuously, and thus easy to find. The likely bred locally, methinks. At Crow Valley Campground, most of the obvious passerine migrants were flycatchers, with singleton GRAY, LEAST, HAMMOND'S, and WILLOW FLYCATCHERS (plus a couple not-ID'd Empids) and 2 OS Flycatchers. There were more Yellow Warblers than I suspect were raised there and a Wilson's Warbler, but no other migrant warblers/vireos. Interestingly, the pools remaining in Crow Creek had 13 SOLITARY SANDPIPERS, all but one of which were juvs, and all that I could ID to race were cinnomomea - the juv's with the bronzy spots, not white. Tinmath Reservoir is a blur of birds. The rarest bird was a HORNED GREBE, which was present there about a week ago as well. Five juv COMMON MERGS probably also rate mention. As for numbers, there were > 600 DC Cormorants, >700 Canada Geese, 132 Snowy Egrets (give or take a few), 70 or so Redhead, >200 California Gulls, > 200 white pelicans, and a good variety of dabblers (100 or more each of pintail, shovelers, Gadwall) plus hundreds of Western Grebes with chicks (and a few Clark's Grebes). Pretty stunning. There was also a nice juv SAGE THRASHER on the road into the reservoir from the south. For shorebird variety, the ponds just s. of Lower Latham produced: Killdeer, BN Stilt, Am Avocet, Lesser Yellowlegs, Baird's Sand, Least Sand, Semi Sand, Western Sand, Stilt Sand, Wilson's Snipe, and Wilson's Phalarope (and a dozen or so WF Ibis). And the best of all for this boy recently transplanted from WA: It was warm and sunny..... Good Birding Steve Mlodinow Longmont, CO -- 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.
