Colorado Birders, Please mark your calendars! The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory is searching for folks to get out and search for Barrow's Goldeneyes again this year from 23 November through 3 December. This will be the fourteenth consecutive year for the count! It was exciting this year to learn that this species also breeds near Mt. Evans. This is the ONLY place this species has been documented breeding outside of the Flat Top Mountains in Colorado. It is possible that all the Barrow's Goldeneyes found in Colorado in late fall/early winter represents the portion of the species that breeds in Colorado. Therefore, by counting the birds in Colorado at this time of year, we are getting an idea of how the population of Barrow's Goldeneyes is doing in our state. However, we don't really know for certain and it possible that some birds are coming from Wyoming or farther north.
For the count, we would like to concentrate on counting all of the Barrow's Goldeneyes in Colorado, however, we also appreciate counts of all waterbird species present at each lake/reservoir visited. If participants would enter their count totals into eBird that would be much appreciated. I will check eBird for all BAGOs reported during this time period for those of you that don't post on CoBirds or WSBN. Or, you can send count totals to me at this e-mail address or [email protected]. Here are the lakes that have had the bulk of Barrow's Goldeneyes on past counts and will hopefully be visited during the count period: Bear Creek Reservoir – Jefferson County Blue Lake – Eagle County Blue Mesa Reservoir – Gunnison County Clear Creek Reservoir – Lake County Dillon Reservoir – Summit County Eleven Mile Reservoir – Park County Grand Lake – Grand County Horsetooth Reservoir – Larimer County Ice Lake – Chaffee County Jerry Creek Reservoir – Mesa County Lake Avery – Rio Blanco County Lake Granby – Grand County Mount Elbert Forebay – Lake County North Pond Park - Summit County Ranch at the Roaring Fork Ponds – Garfield County Rifle Falls Fish Hatchery – Garfield County Rifle Gap Reservoir – Garfield County Shadow Mountain Reservoir – Grand County Silverthorne Sewage Ponds – Summit County Spring Park Reservoir - Eagle County Stagecoach Reservoir - Routt County Steamboat Lake – Routt County Taylor Park Reservoir – Gunnison County Union Reservoir – Weld County Vega Reservoir – Mesa County Yampa River (near Craig - Forrest Luke please help!) – Moffat County Here are the totals for each year of the count: 1999 – 226 at 8 sites 2000 – 107 at 16 sites (less effort) 2001 – 181 at 20 sites 2002 – 189 at 16 sites 2003 – 245 at 21 sites 2004 – 226 at 14 sites 2005 – 219 at 16 sites 2006 – 280 at 21 sites 2007 – 225 at 17 sites 2008 - 183 at 19 sites 2009 - 163 at 16 sites 2010 - 163 at 16 sites 2011 - 217 at 24 sites Thank you and Good Birding! Jason Beason Special Monitoring Projects Coordinator Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory Paonia - Delta County -- 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 https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
