[cobirds] Pueblo Excursion

Friday afternoon I set out for some Saturday birding in the Pueblo area with John Vanderpoel.  First we stopped at Chatfield State Park to try for Pomarine Jaeger which we found floating quietly by itself east of Fisherman’s Point.  Oddly it was soon joined by a group of California Gulls that harassed it rather than the other way around.  Ultimately, our conclusion was that that the bird had just finished consuming something, the remains of which might have even been floating on the surface nearby—fat and lazy vs. lean and hungry.

 

We continued south and after fighting traffic, stopped at Big Johnson Reservoir outside Colorado Springs.  We found the Goffs and Gloria Nikolai viewing the 10,000 or so birds present.  Finally Jeanne found us a Pacific Loon that was playing hide-n-seek behind the curve in the dam.  There was also a single Franklin’s Gull still present.  Other than that is was lots and then some more of just about every kind of duck, grebe and gull that you would expect. Oh, and did I mention Coot?  An exploration of a patch of El Paso County unknown to me for the previously reported Yellow-crowned Night Heron was not successful.

 

Saturday morning Gwen Moore joined us in Pueblo for a drive out to Pueblo Reservoir SWA and then SP.  Again, we were greeted by massive numbers of grebes, mostly Western and Eared, and coots that did their part to try to obscure the goodies that had to be present.  At our first stop, the western most point in the eastern part of the SWA, we had a juvenal plumage Northern Shrike and a single Scaled Quail-a target for us northerners.  (Obviously the grebes and coots weren’t very good at obscuring those two.)    Continuing into the State Park, north section, we found David Chartier and another birder overlooking more grebes and coots at the end of W. Fishing Rd.  John picked out an adult Laughing Gull, previously reported by Brandon Percival that came up to almost right below us for excellent study. 

 

We continued to the east we stopped just east of the north marina (North Picnic Road, I believe) where our scanning turned up a distant Surf Scoter and Common Loon plus a Curve-billed Thrasher, another target. Further east the gull flock had a first winter Thayer’s Gull.

 

At 11:00 we went east to Pueblo City Park to join first Brandon and then Mark Peterson and Brad Steger to search the passerine flocks there for the next couple of hours.  All three nuthatches, both kinglets, creeper, etc. were present, but few warblers.  We gave up and were sitting in the car ready to leave when Brandon called us back for our collective target there—Townsend’s Warbler. 

 

On the way home we stopped again at Big Johnson where the overnight churn had brought in a Greater White-fronted Goose.  The Pacific Loon was still present and a half-dozen American Pipits were flying about.

 

Bill Kaempfer

Boulder