Recap: The Great Boulder Caper, v. 2025

[Ted Floyd]

The Great Boulder Caper, v. 2025, held yesterday, Fri., Nov. 28, and sponsored by Colorado Field Ornithologists (CFO), was great fun. Thirty-some participants Capered from Longmont south to Lafayette and then west into Boulder. It was brisk and brilliant in the morning, then warm and wonderful in the early afternoon, and then wild and windy in the late afternoon and into the early evening. Here's most of the group at the start of the Caper:

Here's how it all went down:

Things got off to an idiosyncratic start at McIntosh Rez when Archer Silverman and Owen Robertson excitedly announced a Waneka goose (presumptive cackling x snow) at our meetup spot. What a way to start a day of eBirding and iNatting; how low can you go? Also at McIntosh: two lovely Bonaparte gulls, a sextet of latish eared grebes, a drake wood duck, and a couple of dark-morph eastern fox squirrels, Sciurus niger. Winston Liu kept proposing that we run laps around the entire lake, but ah well.

Over at Loomiller Park, we found a hatch-year snow goose, and we engaged in rampant conjecture about the various taxa of "white-cheeked geese" in the large flock there. What is taverneri, anyhow? And the slowly swirling masses of baleen-equipped, lamella-endowed, filter-feeding northern shovelers, skillfully plumbing unbounded vortexes for micro-crustaceans, were mesmerizing.

At Golden Ponds, our haul included a most excellent water ouzel on the St. Vrain River, three marsh wrens, and a Harlan hawk. Ajit Antony might still be there, with the bird in his scope. Archer and Owen mutineed in pursuit of an apparent City Park goose (presumptive Canada x Chen). "The things we do for you people." A harvestman on the path was apparently Phalangium opilio, indigenous to the Old World, established in the eastern U.S., and rapidly expanding westward.

 

And at the nearby Boulder County Fairgrounds, we tarried with a couple of curious Zonotrichias. One was a dark-lored white-crowned sparrow, likely nominate leucophrys. Another indicated golden-crowned ancestry. And we recovered Zak Hepler, whom we had temporarily misplaced.

Then it was down to Boulder Creek at 95th St., where the you-know-what was a no-show. But seven tardy American white pelicans put on a marvelous show, and an adult ferruginous hawk posed for leisurely viewing. Pat Cullen reCapered here, and we welcomed her back to the flock. DeCapering is an apostasy, but reCapering is permissible in The Church of Birds. This weighty theological matter occupied a fair bit of our conversation.

Meanwhile, we had "forgotten" to drive down Raptor Alley. So we backtracked north to do that, and we were not disappointed, as a striking prairie falcon perched atop one of the ginormous utility poles there for all to admire.

Back on track, sort of, we Capered over to Erie Rez, where a large Aythya flock has been building of late. Of note were 440 ring-necked ducks. An adult Ross goose, glitteringly immaculate, was a crowd-pleaser, as was a female prairie merlin perched in a Russian olive. Nine flyover northern pintails were semi-notable for the site. A major highlight—perhaps the highlight of the entire Caper—was when Pete Christiansen brought out a large baking dish full of delectable lemon squares. They were devoured within seconds. Also, Tracy Pheneger reCapered here. Whew.

Next was the Legion Park overlook, a straight shot down Arapahoe Ave., but Archer and I somehow managed to get lost en route. Or confused. Anyhow, we reconnected with the group, where Megan Jones Patterson and The Remnant had found six western grebes and the merganser trifecta (hooded, red-breasted, common).

From Legion Park, we Capered over to Baseline Rez, where we endeavored to misidentify a latish female ruddy duck as something rarer. But it was not to be.

We wound down the Caper proper at Sombrero Marsh, where a painstakingly careful tally of 19 killdeer broke the eBird filter for Boulder County.

A few of us post-Capered at dusk in the Boulder Creek floodplain just east of Boulder, where we were enchanted by a singing eastern screech-owl near the extreme western limit of the species' range—and by the very recently reinstated Boulder star. IYKYK.

Thanks to Megan and CFO for logistical support, thanks to eBird tickman Archer, and thanks especially to all who Capered with us. We'll do it again next year!

Ted Floyd, Caperer

Boulder Co.