Early this morning, Megan Miller and I headed out to Cobb Lake to see if the rain knocked down any migrants. There were a decent number of sparrows around including many Vesper and Chipping with singles of Savannah and Brewer's Sparrows. We didn't find too much else in the way of migrant songbirds, except for three Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, but the waterfowl diversity was decent with ten species of ducks and 7 late Cackling Geese. Cobb Lake itself had a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers, some Least and a Semipalmated Sandpiper, and a Horned Grebe.
Later in the day I decided to hit Boyd Lake where there was a large number of shorebirds at the very north end (about a 1/4 mile walk from the last parking lot in the state park). At first I could not find the peep flock that has been around, but there was a large number of both species of yellowlegs, 6 Willets, 6 Long-billed Dowitchers, 2 Black-necked Stilts, and a little more than a dozen American Avocets. I walked down the beach a little bit towards the parking lot, but did not see anything else until I ran into Walter Wehtje who pointed out a distant Forster's Tern. We decided to check out the north end again, where we found a Marbled Godwit and I found the peep flock with 50+ birds including a decent number of Semipalmated Sandpipers and about 6 Western Sandpipers. Since Boyd Lake was so good and seemed to have some turnover, I decided to hit it again before sunset. I found most of the same birds as before minus the Black-necked Stilts but with addition of a Whimbrel that was mostly seen only in flight. I last saw it around 7 PM flying north away from the lake. Overall it was an impressive day with over 80 species. Good Birding, Andy Bankert Fort Collins, CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAMvLbkgw7_zfpVDvKMmwAZsxfo_gW44LsEr6bYL%2BEmP5W0pr3w%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
