Birders, Nick Moore texted me this afternoon with the report of a distant Common/Arctic Tern at Boulder Reservoir. I got up there by about 5:50 pm and soon found the bird perched on one of the floating docks in the middle of the reservoir, a favorite perch for terns at the Res. It had silvery folded primaries, an all dark bill, and the head pattern of an ARCTIC TERN. I took a second to scan the other docks, and of course the bird took off while I wasn't looking. I waited for about 10 minutes before the bird re-appeared in the cove on the north shore where numbers of RING-BILLED GULLS and a single 2nd winter HERRING GULL were beginning to congregate. I had great scope views as it flew around the cove. It has absolutely no black in the wings, with brilliant white secondaries that give the bird an almost Sabine's-like pattern (also reminiscent of a Forster's pattern, but without the head pattern of non-breeders of that species, an no visible black in the primaries). The tail is proportionately long, the body petite and immaculately white, and the head is blunt, accentuated by the tiny black bill. All in all a fine example of a juvenile/first winter ARCTIC TERN. Of course my habit of going to the Res so late in the day (best way to catch the largest number of gulls on the north shore) precluded me getting in touch with anyone who would be able to make it out before dark fell. The tern foraged for the next half hour, mostly out in the middle near all the Aechmophorus grebes, occasionally flying west into the SW cove. I felt that being on the South shore would have provided a closer study. It eventually flew back to the Western-most floating dock where it landed on the bench and I left, figuring it was settling down the the night. Just before alighting on the dock, it landed on the water for about 10 seconds, which I thought was pretty cool for a tern.
Great birding, Christian Nunes Boulder, copajaro...@hotmail.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/christian_nunes/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
