To add, I understand the Rusty was not observed near the lakeshore when seen on 12/14, but the lakeshore habitat seems like a more likely spot to refund it than the nearby spot where it was found, which we did check.
David Suddjian Littleton CO Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 17, 2019, at 2:35 PM, David Suddjian <[email protected]> wrote: > > > A DFO outing this morning observed the continuing Varied Thrush near Carmody > Park, JeffCo just minutes after at sunrise. No luck tracking down the recent > Rusty Blackbird at Bear Creek Lake Park. There is still open water there near > in the corner near the dam, perhaps still with some good shoreline habitat > for the blackbird in that area of the lakeshore, but it was hard to see or > out of view from the boat launch area. > > At Chatfield SP we could not locate the White-winged Scoter or the Pacific > Loon, but we did see a Long-tailed Duck and Bonaparte's Gull in > Douglas/Jeffco. Interestingly, the Long-tailed appeared to have asymmetrical > markings on the face, with a normally large brown patch on the right side and > a very small area of brown on the left side. Some poor digiscopes show the > limited brown on the left side, which is mostly the side we saw as it faced > into the south wind with amid a flock of Common Mergs. > https://ebird.org/checklist/S62399001 > > Later we enjoyed great duck viewing at Hine Lake at Robert A Easton Reg. Park > (now very little open water and reduced duck numbers, but still good) and at > Blue Heron Park, JeffCo. I wanted to mention Blue Heron Park (an eBird > hotspot) especially, as there were about 400 ducks (Ring-necked, wigeon and > Redhead dominant) packed into a limited area of open water kept open by > bubblers. The ducks are foraging very actively. A principal food here is > aquatic vegetation (presumably with some invertebrates in it). Redhead and > Ring-necked are diving and bringing it up from below and the wigeon chase > after them as soon as they surface to steal some, as it sometimes takes the > Redhead or Ring-necked several seconds to get it all in the bill and down the > hatch. The stuff must also come up where the bubblers are active, as the > wigeon dabble there. The birds can be viewed at close range in amazing > lighting morning or afternoon. I recommend it as a fun short stop with almost > no walking needed to view. > > David Suddjian > Ken Caryl Valley > Littleton, 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/5730CC34-E732-4D36-A833-F5165169A86C%40gmail.com.
