Yesterday I led a delightful group of 16 birders from ASGD's Master Birder class on a survey of gull viewing locations in south metro Denver. This is what we found:
1. Chatfield Res -frozen. No obvious gull flocks could be seen from the Audubon Society headquarters area, so we decided to skip this location. 2. South Platte Reservoir - A decent flock of gull was on the ice shelf, with several hundred birds. Highlights were an adult lesser black-backed gull (Plus another seen flying away after a Bald Eagle scared off half the flock), two Thayer's Gulls (one adult, one third-cycle), an adult California Gull, about twenty Herring Gulls of various ages, and a candidate immature Kumlien's Iceland Gull (better photos needed). Birds were a bit too far away for great looks, even through high-powered telescopes. Three continuing Long-tailed Ducks were a big bonus here. 3. Cherry Creek State Park ($8 entrance fee) Marina-A small group of 50 gulls gave us closeup views of adult and first-cycle Ring-billed Gulls, two 2nd cycle and three adult Herring Gulls, and a first cycle Thayer's Gull. 4. Cherry Creek State Park Smoky Hill Picnic Area-a break in the ice featured a large flock of common Merganser. A good sized flock of gulls sitting on the ice shelf contained >100 Ring-billed Gulls and five Herring Gulls. 5. Aurora Reservoir ($10 entrance fee). About 100 Ring-billed Gulls and 3 Herring Gulls were viewed at a great distance on the north side. 6. Late in the afternoon a few of us returned to South Platte Reservoir. The gulls were numerous and closer but variety was low- hundreds of Ring-billed Gulls and about 25 Herring Gulls. Eventually as the sun set an adult Thayer's Gull appeared and then a probable 2nd-cycle Nelson's Gull (hybrid Glaucous x Herring). As I was leaving after sundown, the gulls were flying off toward McLellan Reservoir. Nick Komar Fort Collins CO Sent from my iPhone -- 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/8CD4D5AB-9258-432C-940A-F9FAF511CB04%40comcast.net. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
