Boulder County miscellany

[Ted Floyd]

Hey, everybody.

Early this Sunday morning, Apr. 9, on a lark and before the winds picked up, I birded Lagerman Reservoir, Boulder County, where 21 somewhat early white-faced ibises were roosting in the west end shallows. Then I heard the wild caterwauling of a long-billed curlew, way up high; it circled the Rez broadly, then put down on the mudflats at the northwest corner of the lake. Earlier, whilst doing a bit of astronomy, I was delighted by a disorganized chorus of winnowing Wilson snipe north of nearby Clover Basin Reservoir. Okay, after Lagerman, I headed down to Boulder Reservoir, which had a nice Mexican duck at the west end mudflats. Also: great blue herons (n=16) tending nests, 3 ospreys, 1 male American avocet, at least 80 noisy Franklin gulls, and scattered tree swallows and 1 barn swallow.

Yesterday afternoon, Saturday, Apr. 8, Andrew Floyd and I did general natural history in the Coalton Open Space, far southern Boulder County, where we found 2 burrowing owls, 1 turkey vulture, 1 bald eagle, an odd aggregation of 35+ black-billed magpies, and incomprehensible multitudes of alfalfa webworm moths, Loxostege cereralis. And yesterday morning (sorry, I'm going out of order here), Sat., Apr. 8, I popped in on Cottonwood Marsh, Walden Ponds, Boulder County, where I found 16 cinnamon teal and 5 blue-winged teal, 10 Wilson snipe all together, 3 greater yellowlegs, a flyover merlin, a white-crowned sparrow that appeared to derive from one of the dark-lored populations (however, it was molting, an SY, I believe, so I'm not sure), and an early-ish Lincoln sparrow.

Continuing in random chronological order, back on Friday evening, Apr. 7, Andrew and I saw and heard 2 early or overwintering lesser goldfinches at Summit Middle School, Boulder County.

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County