Cobirders,

 

11 participants and 5 feeder watchers got out to help on a very successful CBC.  I want to THANK all who participated and helped make this such a successful count.  I believe we will end up with the second highest count in the state behind only Pueblo Reservoir.

 

We had originally planned on having around 20 participants but between sickness and a possible goodie in Ft. Collins we lost almost half our expected turn out.  Like most other counts around the state there was little open water around but what water we had produced all of our expected waterfowl species.  We even got one species of Gull which is always tough on this count.  We added one new species to the count this year being a group of 10 GREAT-TAILED GRACKLES and our EURASIAN-COLLARD DOVE count has exploded.  Last year we had 240 EUCD on the count whereas this year we had 644.  Our Highlig! hts were:

 

6 Greater Scaup (HC)

2 Williamson's Sapsuckers

2 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers

1 Red-naped Sapsucker (probably the best bird of the count, one count week record prior to this year)

 

9 Northern Shrikes (HC)

1 Winter Wren (Western Race)

2 Hermit Thrush (only second time on this count, HC)

2 Rufous-crowned Sparrows (has not been missed since they were discovered in 1998)

3 Lincoln's Sparrows

5 Swamp Sparrows

1 Rusty Blackbird (only second time on count, maybe only the third county record)

3 Brown-headed Cowbirds

4 Lesser Goldfinches

 

There is still one feeder yet to report but I doubt it will add anything so our total species is at 109 and total individuals 18094.  Much better than I expected given the conditions leading up to the count.  Thanks ! again to those who participated.