FlockFinders 2025 COBC Report - September 6, 2025
Our day started early with a quest for the Boreal Owl that we did not get last year. We heard it calling about 15" in front of us in the darkness of the early morning. The day was off to an amazing start! Back to our campground for breakfast and birding for passerines and then off to the Walden Reservoir where we found it to be loaded with birds both on and off the water! Highlights here were Franklin's Gull, Snow Goose, and notable numbers of American Wigeon.
We hit county par by 10:30am, so we were very encouraged that we would reach our team goal of 100!
Next stop was the Arapahoe Wildlife Loop where we found the front end of the loop to be bountiful and the back end not so much. The lakes on the second half of the loop were overrun by cattle and very few birds. We are very concerned that this important stopover for shorebirds is in such inhospitable condition this year. We also started to worry if we could make our goal without getting the many shorebirds we had expected.
A run up the ditch road netted a few more species and we finally found another lake with suitable mudflats that gave us a few new peeps, but not near the numbers we expected. We pivoted plans and ran out to 18 Island, but there wasn't anything we hadn't already seen. We did pick up our support team members for this leg and we were able to give them beautiful close up looks at a majestic Golden Eagle!
Knowing that our shorb luck was running out, we decided to head back to the mountains. Routing back through Rand and the Owl Mountain Wildlife Area, we picked up another 3 species and headed to Moose Visitor's Center for a few warblers.
Our final push was our hike to Lake Agnes. We hiked in the rain, but picked up several notoriously difficult species including American Three Toed Woodpecker, Red Crossbills, Pine Grosbeak and our final species of the day, Dusky Grouse. In the parking lot at Lake Agnes we also met Brian Wheeler, author of Birds of Prey of the West!
Our final total was 101 and we were thrilled to have met and exceeded our goal of 100 species. Birds we dipped on, aside from the shorebirds, included American Dipper, Turkey Vulture (only seen by one of our party), Cali Gull (only heard by one of our party), White Breasted Nuthatch, Rock Pigeon (go figure) and Clarks Nutcracker.
Non-bird species we found included Moose, Deer, Fox, we heard a Pika and one of our support team found a Mink!
A note about the weather. The temperatures were normal for this time of year, starting out at 36 degrees at the top of Cameron Pass and hitting a high of 80 in North Park around midday. The wind was light with high clouds causing some harsh lighting at times. There was a significant amount of smoke in the air as well which may have had some impact on birds.
In closing, we exceeded our species goal, but fell short of our goal to win the challenge. We will be back at it again next year here in beautiful Jackson County with an ever more refined plan and the will to bird until we drop for the 2026 Colorado Birding Challenge!
PS: This morning we had a few redemption birds, including a beautiful Calliope Hummingbird coming to our feeder at the campground and mighty Turkey Vulture soaring overhead! Birds!
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