Hello, Birders. Hannah and Andrew and I, accompanied by Tom Wilberding, did a bit of Boulder County birding yesterday afternoon, Saturday, Nov. 24th. First, we stopped in briefly at the Walden Ponds complex, where we saw a Northern Shrike, a Marsh Wren, and a Wilson's Snipe. At one point, Andrew threw an impressively large rock in one of the ponds and flushed a Virginia Rail. Goodies from earlier in the week--Greater Yellowlegs, Cattle Egret, and Swamp Sparrows--were not detected. Next, during a stop in downtown Longmont, we saw a Snow Goose flying over. Judging by size, I'd guess Greater Snow Goose. Here's a factoid: Lesser Snow Goose is believed to be more closely related to Ross's Goose than to Greater Snow Goose; so how many species of "white geese" are there really? Another factoid: The gene that results in "Blue" Snow and Ross's geese is the exact same gene that results in dark-morph Parasitic Jaegers and rare dark-morph Bananaquits. We wound down our afternoon at McIntosh Reservoir. As Bill Schmoker has noted, the place is shockingly devoid birds; for example, we saw a grand total of zero (0) American White Pelicans and Bonaparte's Gulls. We did, however, espy two nice Greater White-fronted Geese with a big flock of Cackling and Canada geese. We heard a Mountain Chickadee, too; as John Tumasonis and others have noted, Mountain Chickadees and other montane birds sure have been spreading out into the flatlands of late. On that note, I'm reminded that I recently found a single, loudly chippering Type 2 Red Crossbill at the Indian Peaks golf course in Lafayette; that was Thursday afternoon, Nov. 22nd. Finally, corvids. Bill mentioned the Chihuahuan Raven, and that's awesome. Those wishing to try their hand at the ID of completely black corvids might consider birding the east side of the Valmont Reservoir complex. Driving past that site (i.e., from 75th Street) yesterday, Hannah and Andrew and I noticed hundreds of black corvids--mainly crows, but also some ravens. Andrew refers to the representatives of such assemblages as "crovens." Ted [email protected], Boulder County, Colorado
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