Turnover at Valmont Reservoir, Boulder County, Dec. 27

[Ted Floyd]

Hey, all. Andrew Floyd and I ventured out to the Valmont Reservoir complex, Boulder County, yesterday evening, Wed., Dec. 27. What a change from 48 hours earlier. With strong winds, warmth, and hazy sunshine yesterday, the birds at Valmont were strikingly different. First off, a tundra swan was flying around out there, the peripatetic "Valmont swan," I suspect. We also saw two kinds of Iceland gulls: an adult thayeri (more or less expected here in winter) and an immature kumlieni (unusual in Colorado). In the old days, like, last winter, we called the former "Thayer gull" and the latter "Iceland gull." Now they are all Iceland gulls. And we found a first-cycle lesser black-backed gull, but no adults (on Christmas day, we saw two adults). The other recent goodies--the loons and red-necked grebes--eluded us.

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County