Where the birds are--and aren't--Boulder County, 3/6-3/9

[Ted Floyd]

First off, bushtits are everywhere in the eastern lowlands of the county (photos and audio: http://tinyurl.com/CoBu-2015-03-06). Mainly, I'm seeing singles and pairs, not the larger flocks we're probably more familiar with. See if you can be the first this spring to find one of their ridiculous nests, like a huge, dirty tube sock careless tossed into a tree. 

At Walden Ponds Sat. morning, 3/7, Cottonwood Marsh was frozen solid, but Wally Toevs Pond had a small patch of open water with many ducks, including 1 cinnamon teal, 3 northern pintails, 6 lesser scaup, and 2 hooded mergansers. The drake common goldeneyes were imitating nighthawks and woodcocks (audio: http://tinyurl.com/CoGo-2015-03-07).

Sat. afternoon, Clover Basin Reservoir had close to a thousand ducks, including 18 canvasbacks and 6 red-breasted mergansers. But nearby Lagerman Reservoir's anseriform population amounted to a grand total of one (1) common merganser. There were three subadult bald eagles there; hmm...

And Sat. afternoon, McIntosh Lake was frozen, duckless, and nearly gullless. But the residential neighborhood just north of the the lake had a trio of cedar waxwings (audio: http://tinyurl.com/CeWw-2015-03-07) and a beautiful, low-soaring adult ferruginous hawk.

Over at Jim Hamm Nature Study Area, my eye wandered across the county line to Union Reservoir, Weld County, where I espied two snow geese.

Sunday morning, 3/8, Valmont Reservoir had a couple thousand gulls. Unfortunately, they were taking off as I arrived just after 6am MDT. About 200 remained until sunrise; of that total, about 50 were California gulls, definitely on the move now through the Front Range metro region. Also 10 herring gulls in the mix. Late Sunday afternoon, Andrew Floyd (video: http://tinyurl.com/AnFl-2015-03-08) and I returned to Valmont and saw a grand total of two (2) gulls, one a herring, the other a Cal. Also present were 6 horned grebes, the overwintering double-crested cormorants, and a swan spuh, probably the long-present but erratic tundra swan.

Over at nearby Valmont Presbyterian Church, the mudflats hosted a killdeer.

Speaking of killdeer, there were two this sunny Monday morning, 3/9, at Prince Lake No. 2. Also a small waxwing flock, western meadowlarks singing up a storm, and 13 mountain bluebirds (photo: http://tinyurl.com/MoBl-2015-03-09).

Oh, I forgot to mention the Twin Lakes Regional Trail ("Gunbarrel Greenway") back on Sat. morning. There were some tricky nuthatches there (audio: http://tinyurl.com/WBNu-2015-03-07), just Rocky Mountain nuthatches, I think, but giving calls that could be (mis)interpreted as those of the Carolina nuthatch. Several red-breasted nuthatches and brown creepers, too. And black-capped chickadees, of course (audio: http://tinyurl.com/BCCh-2015-03-07).

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado