CO birders, Scoping Pueblo Reservoir from the South Marina from 10ish to 2ish today I had four Pacific Loons out to the west, probably quite visible from the North Marina as well. At least one of them would come quite close to the S Marina tires occasionally throughout my visit. A White-winged Scoter was at the tires around 10, but flew east to the dam and is probably somewhere on a different part of the reservoir (or gone altogether). The first Red-breasted Merganser I've seen on Lake Pueblo this season was present as well. Among good numbers of 4000+ gulls by the tires and on the water were Ring-billed, Herring, California, Lesser Black-backed (5) Thayer's Iceland (2), the returned Great Black-backed Gull (seen by Brandon) and a single first year bird I am about 95 percent certain is a Western or Olympic (Western x Glaucous-winged) Gull. I was drawn to it initially because of its overall dark, chocolate color with a darker head and stouter bill than most Herrings. Wings are very Thayer's like with somewhat frosty tips, also somewhat short primaries for a larus. Bird was Herring-sized but with a stouter bill of a different pattern, mostly black but with pink/yellow at the base of the lower mandible. I decided to leave it at unknown for now but I hope someone can come get better confirmation photos of the bird.
Good birding, David Tonnessen Colorado Springs -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/0b730e4e-8b1f-437b-9af2-fb0a1da562f1%40googlegroups.com.
