[cobirds] Boulder County, Nov. 19th: many Swamp Sparrows and a few rare shorebirds

Hello, Birders.


Hannah and Andrew and I had a great time doing some off-and-on- birding today, Monday, Nov. 19th.


We set out with a goal of finding a Swamp Sparrow, so we went to Cottonwood Marsh, popped out of the car, and there was a Swamp Sparrow, right by the boardwalk. We saw a late Greater Yellowlegs there, too.


Next we drove over to the Sawhill Ponds parking lot, where, just like that, a Swamp Sparrow greeted us. Nice Harlan's Hawk there, too.


Well, we were on a Swamp Sparrow kick, we figured, so we headed over to the Boulder Creek crossing at 75th Street, where a bird had been reported a week or so ago. About 1,000 feet downstream, we saw not one, not two, but three Swamp Sparrows, all together. Also present there were a male Cassiar Junco and a Brown Creeper.


Next stop was McIntosh Lake. We  headed to the marsh on the other side of the dam at the southwest side, where, sure enough, we found a Swamp Sparrow. Also nice was a light-morph juvenile Rough-legged Hawk--a bird species that's become positively rare, it seems, in Boulder County the past coupla years. As others have noted, the piscivoro-phenomenon at McIntosh is really worth seeing: well over a thousand mergansers, many hundreds of goldeneyes, scores of Bonaparate's Gulls and Eared Grebes, dozens of American White Pelicans, and a handful of Bald Eagles.


Back to our Swamp Sparrow quest. We ate our lunch at the Boulder County fairgrounds in Longmont. There's a small cattail marsh at the fairgrounds, and there was--wait for it!--a nice Swamp Sparrow right in the little marsh, our 7th of the day.


Our luck finally ran out at Jim Hamm Nature Study Area. We couldn't find a Swamp Sparrow there, but we found at least two Marsh Wrens, and probably more like four or five. And we came upon a splendid surprise on the pond (which is being dredged): a very tardy and nicely vocal American Golden-Plover that we unintentionally flushed--over toward Union Reservoir, I strongly suspect, but that's in a county I don't bird.


We wound up at Panama Reservoir, where we found a wonderful Dunlin. Steve Mlodinow saw one there last month, and I suppose it could be the same bird.


Ted Floyd

tedfloyd57@hotmail.com

Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado

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