I headed out east this morning with John Vanderpoel to do a bit of pre-CBC scouting (the official "count-week" period will begin on Monday for the first CBCs of the year). Our first stop of the day was at Tamarack SWA where we were joined by birder incognito. We searched the hedgerow at parking area 7 thoroughly and found at least two each of Red-bellied Woodpecker and Northern Cardinal plus one Northern Mockingbird. On our way out, "BI" found kinglets between areas 5 and 6. There were at least 3 Golden-crowned Kinglets and one Ruby-crowned plus Northern Bobwhite.
John and I continued on toward Jumbo. A look at the woods along the S. Platte where crossed by Red Lion Road turned up a flock of 23 Wild Turkey. The closer we got to Jumbo, the more geese we saw, but our only Greater White-fronted Geese (about 15) were on Little Jumbo. By the time we arrived at Jumbo, the wind was whipping in from the northwest. That had caused almost all of the waterfowl to seek shelter in the west bay (Logan) or northeast corner (Sedgwick). The huge congregation of white geese (which seemed to be mainly Snow) were at the west end, easily over 5,000. There were about 40 or so gulls at the east end in Sedgwick by outlet structure, almost all were Ring-billed except for one Black-legged Kittiwake (juv.) that kept flashing the bold M across its wings and back at us. We then proceed west to North Sterling Reservoir, still in strong wind. Here there was another sizable white goose flock, as well as several hundred Common Mergansers, but things stayed far away on the west shore where sun and wind made detailed observation difficult. I promise to do better Thursday on the Sterling CBC. Bill Kaempfer Boulder -- 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 cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/SN1PR0301MB1648ABDA9B0C55A8C134F4E8E1360%40SN1PR0301MB1648.namprd03.prod.outlook.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
