The Penrose CBC was conducted on Friday January 5th in a rather nasty snow storm but ended with an unexpected 101 species and our 2nd highest individual count ever.  Well, at least half of the circle had a nasty snow storm all day long while the other half only had the bad weather for about half the day.  With 100% snow cover on the ground and a range of 1 to 7 inches of new snow on count day I was not expecting such a great turnout on both participants and birds.  There were 14 of us out counting and trying to stay warm and dry.

I would like to thank all of those who came to help out in such miserable weather.  The highlight being the VARIED THRUSH was seen by all but two of the participants on count day.  Other highlights were:

2 Barrow's Goldeneye (2nd time for count day)

1 Spotted Sandpiper (new for the count)

4 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (high count, I believe they were all adult birds with 2 M and 2 F)

1 Gray Catbird (3rd time, the last time it was on the count a Varied Thrush was found)

~4500 Dark-eyed Juncos (~1000 more than the previous high, it was somewhat of a spectacle)

29 Lapland Longspurs (3rd time for count day and just a hard bird to find in Fremont County )

9 Rusty Blackbirds (3rd time for the count)

11 Great-tailed Grackles (2nd time)

1 Brown-capped Rosy-Finch (count week and new for the count)

A couple lowlights were missing Greater White-fronted Geese that had been seen 15 years straight and missing Wild Turkey for the first time in 18 years.  Both were seen the following morning for count week birds.  They were two of the seven count week birds.  Another lowlight was the fact that the mountains were getting hammered with snow and we could not get up there to get some of our usual mountain species.

A highlight for the Barr Lake CBC is that it re-took the crown for Eurasian Collard-Dove in CO, at least to my knowledge.  The weather may have played a part in this but after having 644 Doves last year we only managed 392 this year.  I suspect most CO CBCs will have triple digit Collard-Doves before we know it.  Of course places like North Park may never make it to those lofty numbers but I am sure there is no disappointment there!  I would be more than happy to trade some of the Collards for White-winged Doves!

Anyhow, again I would like to thank everyone who participated as I really appreciate all the hard work and stress of dealing with the slick roads.  The complete results will soon be up on the Audubon site.

Mark Peterson