Birders,
The John Martin Reservoir CBC was held today. A total of 14 people took
part. Our final total was 117 species, a new record for the count. Over
a quarter of a million birds were counted, likely a new record for
individual birds tallied for a Colorado CBC. I'm going to keep this
posting short, and my numbers are estimates of the final tallies in some
cases, already in the hands of our co-compiler. Any errors in estimates
are mine.
The highlight species was an Ovenbird found and photographed at Ft. Lyon
State Wildlife Easement by Kathy Mihm-Dunning.
I underestimated the number of Snow Geese present in a previous post.
Today's crack reservoir team tallied 170,000 Snow Geese, with only 2200
Ross' Geese. We've noticed that Snow Geese numbers are exploding, but
not Ross'. Duck numbers were low, with the exception of Common
Mergansers. We found only small numbers of most expected duck species,
as in only three Northern Pintail, and our most glaring miss of the day,
American Wigeon.
Gulls and grebes compensated, with eight species of gull and four
species of grebes. While good numbers of Double-crested Cormorants
remain, the last American White Pelican was observed on 12/16. Today was
a loon day, with four Common's (new to count day but not count week) and
one Pacific Loon.
Two parties found Northern Cardinals, and Swamp and Lincoln's Sparrows
appeared in multiple numbers.
Blackbirds astounded. Observers counted 1475 Great-tailed Grackles (a
Colorado CBC record), and 150 Common Grackles. We estimated 80,000
Red-winged Blackbirds.
I'd like to personally thank everyone that made time and contributed so
much. This was a total team effort.
Please forgive me for possibly sounding tired. I am.
Duane Nelson
Las Animas, Bent County, CO
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