Hello, Birders. "Only" 92 birders showed up for Gullapalooza-2012, held yesterday afternoon, Saturday, Feb. 4th, at the Valmont Reservoir complex, Boulder County. No doubt, the "weather" discouraged the usual throng of several hundred birders. And that's ironic, because the weather was, in a word, beautiful. True, it had been snowing pretty much continually for the previous 36 hours, but by the time we started (and had been correctly predicted here on COBirds!), the skies were mostly sunny, the winds were calm, and the weather was, again, and in a word, beautiful. It wasn't quite t-shirt weather, but almost.
Our highlights: Gulls. As Steve Mlodinow has noted, no black-mantled or white-primaried gulls. And no dark-hooded, red-billed, or wedge-tailed gulls, either, I might add. But the Thayer's Gulls put on a decent show. Especially nice was a textbook adult that showed up mid-afternoon, when there was still abundant light; Marcel Such got us on the bird and gave us a nice tutorial on Thayer's ID. Our three California Gulls (2 adults, 1 first-cycle) were, believe it or not, an actually somewhat notable total for the dead of winter for Boulder County. And the real highlight--in terms of the experience, if not out-and-out rarity--was the spectacle of thousands of gulls swirling above Leggett Reservoir just after sundown. Raptors. The big birds of prey are another draw at Gullapalooza, and they didn't disappoint yesterday. Bald Eagles were in constant view, and it was great to see a courting, chippering, copulating pair up atop one of the tall utility poles. We got two splendid flyovers from stunning adult Golden Eagles. And my personal highlight was just about the most spectacular Prairie Falcon (it was a juvenile) I've ever seen, perched up close on a pole, then flying by FAST!, then circling and soaring right overhead. The winter-resident Ferruginous Hawk put in a few appearances, too. Grebes. THE highlight of the outing for many participants was the dandy Red-necked Grebe, first spotted, by Steve Mlodinow, at a distance of about two light years. Although we never exactly got right on top of the bird, we did manage to get superb views through the scope of this beautiful bird--uncommon in Boulder County even on fall migration, and a definite rarity for us in the middle of winter. A dozen crisply marked Horned Grebes were a fine mid-winter count, and 4 dully marked Western Grebes were still hanging on. The Pied-billed Grebe tally was at least 48. Anatids. Numbers were low, but diversity was decent. The highlight was the Tundra Swan, hanging out with Canada and Cackling geese on Hillcrest Reservoir. Mergansers were nice, too; Numbers were honestly mediocre for Valmont (11 Hooded, 79 Common, 22 Red-breasted, 0 Smew), but close-up views in the low winter light were memorable. Also nice were 2 Wood Ducks (uncommon and very local in Boulder County in winter), 1 constantly calling drake Green-winged Teal, 11 Canvasbacks, 1 Lesser Scaup, and 1 Ruddy Duck (decidedly uncommon in mid-winter). Inexplicably absent were Northern Shoveler and Bufflehead. Other odds and ends. 5 Double-crested Cormorants, a few of which always winter at Valmont; at least 4 Black-crowned Night-Herons; 700+ (!) American Coots, well dispersed on all three reservoirs; 7 deep-voiced, honking-big Common Ravens and 1 smaller, suspicious, "interesting" raven; a Brown Creeper and 2 Townsend's Solitaires in and around the pines at the Xcel Energy headquarters; and a wonderful coyote capering in the snow and making merry on an all-round excellent mid-winter afternoon. Many thanks to all the great participants for a wonderful trip. Thanks especially to the knowledgeable and helpful co-leaders: Bill Kaempfer, Nick Komar, Steve Mlodinow, Christian Nunes, Joel Such, and Marcel Such. (Jeff Gordon and Nathan Pieplow sent their regrets.) Thanks, too, to the sponsoring organizations: the American Birding Association, Boulder Bird Club, Colorado Field Ornithologists, Denver Field Ornithologists, and Xcel Energy. And thanks most of all to Xcel Energy staff Mark Fox and Dave Madonna for their hospitality, for help with logistics, and for making this annual outing such great fun. Ted Floyd [email protected] Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado -- 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.
