Hello, Birders. If you're looking for rare gulls in Boulder County, Panama Reservoir is the place to be these days.
Yesterday afternoon, Sunday, March 11th, in nice "flat" light, I saw 2 or 3 adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 2 end-of-first-cycle Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 2 adult Thayer's Gulls, 1 first-cycle Thayer's Gull, and 3 interesting white-winged gulls. One of the white-wings was an end-of-first-cycle bird that I considered to be a good candidate for Iceland Gull. Imagine my delight, then, when it was joined by another end-of-first-cycle bird that looked even better for Iceland! The latter bird, which sat primly on the water and then gave 3 or 4 prolonged and close-up passes in flight, was as good as any candidate Iceland I've seen in Colorado: especially notable were the completely uniform, quite-pale-gray wing tips which were concolor with the uniform pale gray secondary bar; swimming, the bird had that buoyant, dainty look of an Iceland. So we'll call it one (1) Iceland Gull and one (1) "Thiceland" Gull. Also present was a big ole, white, end-of-first-cycle gull that initially struck me as being Glaucous-like, but, which, upon further inspection, didn't match up. To cut to the chase, my best guess is "Nelson's" Gull, i.e., a Glaucous x Herring hybrid. FYI, this bird seemed a paler than the "Nelson's" Gull photographed a while back by Bill Schmoker: http://blog.aba.org/2012/02/the-square-peg.html Thus, a different bird, or, if it's the same, then its plumage aspect has advanced quite a bit since Bill photo'd the bird. Or maybe it was "just" a pure -barrovianus- Glaucous Gull; -barrovianus- is the smallest and darkest of the Glaucous Gulls. So let's fine-tune things a bit further: one (1) phenotypic Iceland Gull; one (1) "Thiceland" Gull; and one (1) Glaucous-type Gull. Duck and goose numbers were way down from last week, but still many Bald Eagles. Finally, a comment about access. THIS LAKE IS PRIVATE. You can view ONLY from the north side, from the terminus of 115th Street. Park just off the road, BUT NOWHERE ELSE. Everything but the road and road shoulders is PRIVATE. I talked to a home owner, who seemed fine with birders being there. So let's not blow it. Just park at the terminus of 115th Street (but not IN the street), and don't wander into the adjacent fields, thickets, etc. 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.
