Reservoir Roulette

[Steven Mlodinow]

Today Cathy Sheeter, David Dowell and I played Reservoir Roulette.

Little Jumbo was partially open, and had a few hundred white geese upon it.

Jumbo Jumbo Reservoir was mostly an ice cube, with about <5% of the water open, mostly in the ne. corner. Entertainingly, they opened the reservoir for boating today, which probably explained the confused look on the faces of some people we encountered there today.

In the ne. corner of Big Jumbo, in Sedgwick County, there were several thousand Snow Geese and a few Ross's Geese present, including a SNOW x ROSS'S GOOSE. Also, we had our first SANDHILL CRANE for the year there. 

N Sterling Reservoir was a pleasant surprise, about 80% open. High winds and long distances prevented us from working most of the gulls, but we did have a first year GREATER BLACK-BACKED GULL, 3 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS and TWO THAYER'S GULLS. Along the edge of the south boat launch, we encountered a flock of 65 or so COMMON REDPOLLS that included 3 HOARY REDPOLLS (photos to be posted soon) - 2 males and a female. Perhaps more unusual was the CARROTPOLL, found by Cathy, a male Common in which the red was replaced by a carrot-orange. Here's to living like a vegetable. 

At some random creek near the reservoir, we had a (presumably) early migrant American Pipit. And scattered all about N Sterling Res, like so many robins, were 160 or so Bald Eagles. 

Finally, we visited the next ice cube, aka Prewitt Reservoir. At the far sw end of Prewitt, in WA county, there were a reasonable number of geese and ducks in the mud (Prewitt is by far the least filled of the reservoirs visited today), including nearly 500 G White-fronted Geese.

Other notes of interest were 50 or so G White-fronted Geese at Jumbo and N Sterling Res, a Common Grackle in Crook, and a Sandhill Crane along the highway just e. of Crook. 

I gather that the American White Pelicans from Prewitt a couple weeks ago had departed along with the open water, perhaps going to Panama Res??

Good Birding

Steven Mlodinow

Longmont CO

[Cathy Sheeter]

Anyone wishing to see photos of the "Common Carrotpoll" (Redpoll with orange head and chest) can now see some on my flicker site at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aphelionart/  Definitely a unique bird!  I will be honest - I was more interested in getting photos of this bird than documenting Hoary's :D 

 

I have done a little bit of googling since seeing it yesterday and found out that while certainly not common, it is not really rare when birds come from certain regions (Scotland was mentioned in one post).  I was not able to find any research proving whether it is nutrition based, like in House Finches, but suspect that it most likely is.  Interestingly all the photos I was able to find in the short time that I looked online for birds with this trait were females, however my bird was a male, making his orange aura even more striking!

 

Happy birding!

 

Cathy Sheeter

Fort Lupton, CO

 

 

On Sunday, March 3, 2013 11:21:42 PM UTC-7, Steven Mlodinow wrote:

 

We encountered a flock of 65 or so COMMON REDPOLLS that included 3 HOARY REDPOLLS (photos to be posted soon) - 2 males and a female. Perhaps more unusual was the CARROTPOLL, found by Cathy, a male Common in which the red was replaced by a carrot-orange. Here's to living like a vegetable. 

 

[Cathy Sheeter]

On Sunday, March 3, 2013 11:21:42 PM UTC-7, Steven Mlodinow wrote: