Chatfield "The Big Sit!" results.

[Joey Kellner]

The Big Sit! at Chatfield on Sunday went about as good as the fall migration
in Colorado is going...pretty slow. Forty birders attended over the course
of the day and we tallied 53 species (all from one spot). The lowest Big
Sit! in years past was 52 species...so at least we beat that! :-) The
"best" bird was a Lincoln's Sparrow (new to the Big Sit). This brings the
total number of species seen over the last 12 years to 123 species!

Lots of "big misses" this year. No terns, no Sabine's Gulls, the Surf
Scoter was gone and the Red-necked Grebe was still at Plum Creek area and
not seen by us from where we "sat". Other misses were land birds. No Blue
Jays, Downy Woodpeckers, nuthatches, etc. Weather was great early (calm and
sunny), then it became windy around 10am and then rainy.but cleared near the
end of the day.

Thank you to all that attended. A number of birders got to visit and "catch
up" after not having seen each other for a while (a year?).

Ebird checklist:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S20215756

Maybe next year we'll surpass our high count of 71 species (on two different
years). We'll see!

Joey Kellner
Littleton, Colorado