Boulder Big Run-Around

[William H Kaempfer]

I’m eagerly awaiting the results from Joey Kellner’s Big Sit at Chatfield.  I’m guessing that he may have broken all records on what proved to be a really interesting fall-out day up here in Boulder.  For me, an lots of others, it was a big run-around. At the end of the day, I had a tally of 12 birders that I birded with, mainly in search of American Golden Plover.

 

The day started out with Ted Floyd finding one or more AGPL at Wanaka Reservoir in Lafayette.  I heard about it through a post by Bob Spenser (as with Pliny, the younger).  I raced out there to find lot of birders, but no bird during a complete circling of the lake.  The bird had been seen flying off, so Peter Burke and I decided to head toward the south—first Hekla Lake and then Sterns, but no plover.  I went home for lunch only to be interrupted by a text then call from Christian Nunes that he had 2 at Valmont Reservoir.  So I raced to Valmont only to her the “F” word as I jumped out of the car.  The “F” word?  “Flew”, and there they were, two tiny specs heading east.

 

Christan, Peter Burke and I persisted through the cold and some interesting audio systems at Valmont’s Legion park for more than an hour.  Lots of interesting birds were about—a hoard of Mountain Bluebirds, all three mergansers, a skein of cranes that had both greater and lesser along with a Greater White-fronted Goose, ten Long-billed Dowitchers and finally another big plover.  But before I could get my long since packed away scope out, a train came by and changed everything.

 

We broke ranks and headed in different directions.  Christian to the north where I think he found another AGPL at Boulder Reservoir, Peter to the east and Prince Lake #2 where he found AGPL, and me to the east side of Valmont so that I could walk in and see the north-east corner.

 

I didn’t see many new species on the east side of Valmont Res. Other than a Rock Wren acting like a shorebird (but so were the bluebirds and pipits on this day where most food must have been at the water’s edge), but Jessie and Renee Casais and Steve Rush came by.  I suggested a trip to not so far Prince Lake #2, so off we went.

 

Just as we arrived, Peter Burke was leaving, all smiles.  American Golden Plover was still there fairly close in the SW corner along with two Stilt Sandpipers.  We also found a bigger, bigger-billed, puffier, paler and plainer-faced Black-bellied Plover for a great ID comparison, especially when it ended up in the same scope view as the AGPL.

 

Well, I’m just seconds too late as Joey’s message just arrived.  I’m sure he and his 13 companions has as much fun in place as I did with a collective group of 12 in SE Boulder County.

 

Bill Kaempfer

Boulder