[cobirds] RMBO's Annual Barrow's Goldeneye Count

Colorado Birders,

Please mark your calendars! The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory is searching for folks to get out and search for Barrow's Goldeneyes again this year from 23 November through 3 December. This will be the fourteenth consecutive year for the count!  It was exciting this year to learn that this species also breeds near Mt. Evans. This is the ONLY place this species has been documented breeding outside of the Flat Top Mountains in Colorado. It is possible that all the Barrow's Goldeneyes found in Colorado in late fall/early winter represents the portion of the species that breeds in Colorado.  Therefore, by counting the birds in Colorado at this time of year, we are getting an idea of how the population of Barrow's Goldeneyes is doing in our state.  However, we don't really know for certain and it possible that some birds are coming from Wyoming or farther north.

For the count, we would like to concentrate on counting all of the Barrow's Goldeneyes in Colorado, however, we also appreciate counts of all waterbird species present at each lake/reservoir visited.  If participants would enter their count totals into eBird that would be much appreciated.  I will check eBird for all BAGOs reported during this time period for those of you that don't post on CoBirds or WSBN.  Or, you can send count totals to me at this e-mail address or jason.beason@rmbo.org.

Here are the lakes that have had the bulk of Barrow's Goldeneyes on past counts and will hopefully be visited during the count period:
Bear Creek Reservoir – Jefferson County
Blue Lake – Eagle County
Blue Mesa Reservoir – Gunnison County
Clear Creek Reservoir – Lake County
Dillon Reservoir – Summit County
Eleven Mile Reservoir – Park County
Grand Lake – Grand County
Horsetooth Reservoir – Larimer County
Ice Lake – Chaffee County
Jerry Creek Reservoir – Mesa County
Lake Avery – Rio Blanco County
Lake Granby – Grand County
Mount Elbert Forebay – Lake County
North Pond Park - Summit County
Ranch at the Roaring Fork Ponds – Garfield County
Rifle Falls Fish Hatchery – Garfield County
Rifle Gap Reservoir – Garfield County
Shadow Mountain Reservoir – Grand County
Silverthorne Sewage Ponds – Summit County
Spring Park Reservoir - Eagle County
Stagecoach Reservoir - Routt County
Steamboat Lake – Routt County
Taylor Park Reservoir – Gunnison County
Union Reservoir – Weld County
Vega Reservoir – Mesa County
Yampa River (near Craig - Forrest Luke please help!) – Moffat County

Here are the totals for each year of the count:
1999 – 226 at 8 sites
2000 – 107 at 16 sites (less effort)
2001 – 181 at 20 sites
2002 – 189 at 16 sites
2003 – 245 at 21 sites
2004 – 226 at 14 sites
2005 – 219 at 16 sites
2006 – 280 at 21 sites
2007 – 225 at 17 sites
2008 - 183 at 19 sites
2009 - 163 at 16 sites

2010 - 163 at 16 sites

2011 - 217 at 24 sites

Thank you and Good Birding!

Jason Beason
Special Monitoring Projects Coordinator
Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory

Paonia - Delta County

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.