[cobirds] Re: Jackson today

Norm, the ponds north of the actual reservoir and a part of the SWA are open for teal hunting as season just came in this past weekend (It's in until the 16th of September); I'm quite sure that's the reason there was a paucity of wildfowl on these ponds.

Good Birding to you, Matt Rodgers

On Saturday, September 8, 2018 at 9:50:36 PM UTC-6, birdernorm wrote:

Nina Routh and I made a run out to Jackson Reservoir and State Park today, with some interesting results. Arriving fairly early, we decided to try for some migrant songbirds first, and the inlet canal seemed like a good place to start. We advanced across the road and up the canal, and immediately started taking heavy fire. Oops. Dove season. The gunfire didn't do a thing for the ambience, and being unarmed, retreat seemed to be the best strategy. Also productive, as in addition to many of the usual suspects, the parking area produced a bright male Baltimore oriole. He was a surprise in terms of geography and timing, being both off range and about a month late.

After congratulating ourselves sufficiently for the oriole, we decided it was time to try for some shorebirds, so we headed up to the SWA on the north end. Here we found a nice little flock of peeps, with the usual Baird's being joined by several semi-palmated and westerns. There were also three semi-palmated plovers, but not much else. The ponds were full of water and totally empty of waterfowl, which seemed odd.

Time to check the state park, where we were sure we'd find a plethora of migrants among the Russian olives and cottonwoods. Wrong. After and hour and a half of bird tails, bird wingtips and bird shadows, we conceded the field. I think we must have set some kind of record for the most total crappy looks at birds at one location. 

After a brief debate as to the chances that any place else on the west side would be likely to have a bird or two, we agreed to take a quick look at the far northwest end, beyond the last parking lot, where a small marsh is surrounded by an olive/cottonwood thicket. Here we once again got a demonstration of the odd nature of birding, as we scored more birds in the first five minutes than in the previous hour plus. Right out of the chute we had a couple of oddities, a pair of female Bullock's orioles and a yellow-breasted chat, at which eBird didn't protest, but certainly raised an eyebrow. Over the next ten minutes we had eight eastern kingbirds, orange-crowned and yellow warblers, a red-tailed hawk, two western wood-pewees, a house wren, Brewer's and clay-colored sparrows and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, no partridge, but all of those others, plus some I am no doubt forgetting, over the course of a hundred-foot walk. It never hurts to try one more spot.....

Norm Lewis

Lakewood, CO

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/8f3f3d19-52e3-47dd-a810-13d111cf63d9%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.