A group of six of us birded Ward today on the 31st Indian Peaks Winter Bird Count. (That's right, 31 years!) Data was entered in the Great Backyard Bird Count data base.
The weather could not have been better-little wind, clear blue skies, 30 degrees and a foot of snow (+/- and in some places +++) on the ground, but perfectly clear roads. We tallied 407 birds of 20 species with 75-80 percent of the individuals in Ward itself. Our individual count was actually the 4th highest in those 31 years. Good stuff included Golden-crowned Kinglet (1-and the first GBBC of the year for Colorado); White-winged Dark-eyed Junco (3); Brown-capped rosy Finch (40); Pine Grosbeak (37) and Evening Grosbeak (30). I went out on a limb with the GBBC compilation when they asked for the level of expertise of the observers. I think it was a reach to put down "excellent" with Maggie Boswell, Alex Brown, Ted Floyd, Elena Klaver and Christian Nunes joining me, but since there was so much snow on the ground, I figured a little "white" lie was okay. But I got busted: GBBC came back with "are you sure" messages for Pine Grosbeak and Mountain Chickadee-go figure. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- 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.
