Eurasian Wigeon, Canon City, Fremont County 12/17 YES!

[mel...@comcast.net]

Greetings all!

 

Last night I got a call from Debbie Barnes about a Eurasian Wigeon found on Sunday’s CBC by Bill and Dan Maynard.

 

This morning we followed her directions and came upon a small pond that had about 16 wigeons in it. We parked and had just found the Eurasian Wigeon in the group when all but one of the birds lifted off and flew to the west then circled around toward the north (to the river?). The one bird that stayed, amazingly, was the object of our trip. We had a good 8-10 minutes to watch it before it, too, took off. We waited for a while to see if any of the birds would return, but none did.

 

The best part of all was that this Eurasian Wigeon (excuse me not knowing the proper 4-letter abbreviation) was our 350th species for Colorado this year. What a thrill it was!

 

To see this pond, take US Hwy 50 west to Canon City. Turn left on Mac Kenzie (south) and drive to the junction with CO Hwy 115. Turn right and go west on 115 to Willow Road. Turn right and go north to Willow Lane. Turn right on Willow Lane and go until it dead ends at the entrance to a dairy farm. There will be two tiny ponds on the right, and the birds were right there. (Lots of “rights”.) We also saw a Belted Kingfisher, several Common Ravens around town, some Black-billed Magpies, not to mention the NEW McDonalds.

 

Thanks to Debbie for calling and to all who have wished us well over the last couple of weeks.

 

Good Birding!

 

Mel and Jeanne Goff

Colorado Springs

[Brandon K. Percival]

If the wigeon isn't at the pond on Willow Street, another couple of places in the Canon City area, that have wigeon, are Centennial Park and Sell's Pond.  There are always a lot of wigeon during the day on the grass and pond at Centennial Park in the west part of Canon City, and early in the morning yesterday, there were quite a few wigeon at Sells Pond off Sells Road in Canon City, though they left fairly early, before sunrise, probably heading to Centennial Park.  There are other ponds around Canon City, so the wigeon could turn up somewhere else too.  Many birders were able to see the Eurasian Wigeon yesterday during the Penrose CBC, and I think this is the first one to be found in Fremont County!  Hopefully the bird stays for the winter, some have in the past in Colorado.  Another great find by Dan Maynard and Bill Maynard.

 

Brandon Percival

Pueblo West, CO