Fountain Creek CBC Wednesday Dec. 17th

[Diana Beatty]

The Fountain Creek CBC took place this past Wednesday.  Winds held off from extremes for the morning but became a factor in the afternoon.  Warm temperatures, dry conditions and open water were features of the count setting this year.

Preliminary data are here:  https://ebird.org/tripreport/434517

We are looking at around 88 species reported, a decent number for this count in recent years.  Total number of birds was on the high end for us but this is pretty species-specific  with lots of Ring-billed Gulls and Starlings, and the overall feeling was that things were a bit slow, and no significant rarities were around.

We did have both Great-tailed and Common Grackle as well as Brewer's Blackbirds, a few Lapland Longspurs, both Northern and Loggerhead Shrikes (as is typical for our count), 5 Merlins, 5 Golden Eagles, Lewis's and Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, and a few Snow Geese.

Diana Beatty

El Paso County

Fountain Creek CBC coordinator