Snow Buntings, Morgan Cty 11-25-2021

[Eric DeFonso]

Hi everyone,

While birding Jackson Reservoir State Park this morning looking mostly for waterfowl, I chanced into a pair of calm and confiding Snow Buntings (SNBU) along the path/road on the dike, on the south edge of the reservoir. I was excited since this is only my second SNBU encounter ever in Colorado, the first being almost 13 years ago in Weld County. There have not been many reports of Snow Buntings in Colorado this year, so I thought it worth the mention here on CoBirds. I was able to snap several decent digiscoped shots before losing sight of them. I believe they were both males in nonbreeding (basic) plumage, but I am still pretty unfamiliar with this species so I may be mistaken. In addition to the SNBUs, I also spotted and photographed a female Black Scoter hanging out with some Lesser Scaup.

I was surprised to discover though that the eBird app did not flag SNBU as 'R', i.e., requiring documentation. When I got home I looked up more information and learned that indeed Snow Bunting sightings in Morgan County also do not require documentation for the Colorado Bird Records Committee either. Despite this ease of reporting SNBU however, eBird shows very few SNBU records all-time for Morgan County. Before my sighting today at Jackson SP, only one other prior record of Snow Bunting exists in eBird for Morgan, a sighting reported by Van Remsen on New Years Eve of 1972! Who knew?

On that note, let's all find some more handsome and intriguing Snow Buntings to close out the year. You can see images of the discussed species at my list, linked here:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S98058628

Happy Thanksgiving to all,

Eric

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Eric DeFonso
near Lyons, Boulder County, CO