Norm, the ponds north of the actual reservoir and a part of the SWA are open for teal hunting as season just came in this past weekend (It's in until the 16th of September); I'm quite sure that's the reason there was a paucity of wildfowl on these ponds.
Good Birding to you, Matt Rodgers On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 9:50:36 PM UTC-6, birdernorm wrote: > > Nina Routh and I made a run out to Jackson Reservoir and State Park today, > with some interesting results. Arriving fairly early, we decided to try for > some migrant songbirds first, and the inlet canal seemed like a good place > to start. We advanced across the road and up the canal, and immediately > started taking heavy fire. Oops. Dove season. The gunfire didn't do a thing > for the ambience, and being unarmed, retreat seemed to be the best > strategy. Also productive, as in addition to many of the usual suspects, > the parking area produced a bright male Baltimore oriole. He was a surprise > in terms of geography and timing, being both off range and about a month > late. > After congratulating ourselves sufficiently for the oriole, we decided it > was time to try for some shorebirds, so we headed up to the SWA on the > north end. Here we found a nice little flock of peeps, with the usual > Baird's being joined by several semi-palmated and westerns. There were also > three semi-palmated plovers, but not much else. The ponds were full of > water and totally empty of waterfowl, which seemed odd. > Time to check the state park, where we were sure we'd find a plethora of > migrants among the Russian olives and cottonwoods. Wrong. After and hour > and a half of bird tails, bird wingtips and bird shadows, we conceded the > field. I think we must have set some kind of record for the most total > crappy looks at birds at one location. > After a brief debate as to the chances that any place else on the west > side would be likely to have a bird or two, we agreed to take a quick look > at the far northwest end, beyond the last parking lot, where a small marsh > is surrounded by an olive/cottonwood thicket. Here we once again got a > demonstration of the odd nature of birding, as we scored more birds in the > first five minutes than in the previous hour plus. Right out of the chute > we had a couple of oddities, a pair of female Bullock's orioles and a > yellow-breasted chat, at which eBird didn't protest, but certainly raised > an eyebrow. Over the next ten minutes we had eight eastern kingbirds, > orange-crowned and yellow warblers, a red-tailed hawk, two western > wood-pewees, a house wren, Brewer's and clay-colored sparrows and a > partridge in a pear tree. Well, no partridge, but all of those others, plus > some I am no doubt forgetting, over the course of a hundred-foot walk. It > never hurts to try one more spot..... > > > Norm Lewis > Lakewood, 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/8f3f3d19-52e3-47dd-a810-13d111cf63d9%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
