Boulder County birds, Oct. 9-11

[Ted Floyd]

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day, everybody. Some recent observations from around eastern Boulder County:

Early this Monday morning, Oct. 10, I visited the Lake Park Open Space in Louisville, where I heard and saw a remarkable Woodhouse scrub-jay. The bird looked normal, but wait till you get a load of its vocalizations. Wood duck here too, and several lesser goldfinches hanging on.

Continuing in a vocal vein, a white-breasted nuthatch at Greenlee Preserve, Boulder County, yesterday morning, Oct. 9, gave notes both singly and in series that were "eastern"/"Carolina"-like. But nuthatch guru Ed Pandolfino explains why these are actually isolated song elements from a "Nelson's"/"Rocky Mountain" nuthatch. Over at nearby Waneka Lake, a tardy snowy egret was still hanging on. The whole Greenlee/Waneka complex was decently birdy.

Yesterday afternoon, Oct. 9, Hannah Floyd and Andrew Floyd and I had some nice birds at Baseline Reservoir and a very nice bird at Valmont Reservoir. Baseline had several spiffy Franklin gulls and a high-flying flock of sandhill cranes; Valmont had a laughing gull, likely a second-year bird.

And back on Saturday, Oct. 8, whilst at a soccer match at Summit Middle School, Andrew and I were visited by a spotted towhee. The reason I mention the prosaic towhee is that it gives me the opportunity to remind folks that this ain't your grandma's COBirds anymore. If you're not linking to and uploading media, you're not getting your money's worth out of COBirds. (Oh. Wait. COBirds is free. You don't have to pay anything. Thank you, Colorado Field Ornithologists, for providing this wonderful resource to the birding community.) Anyhow, we don't want CFO's Facebook page to have all the fun, so please post pix to COBirds, like this:

   Spotted Towhee, Summit Middle School, Boulder County, Oct. 8, 2016.

   Snowy Egret, Waneka Lake, Boulder County, Oct. 9, 2016.

   Killdeer, Waneka Lake, Boulder County, Oct. 9.

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County