[cobirds] John Martin Reservoir CBC results

Birders,

The John Martin Reservoir CBC was held on December 17th. We try to hold
this count as early as the season as possible, because the great number
of birds present on the reservoir is drastically reduced when the lake
freezes. We also hold it during the week, because duck and deer hunters
are present in larger numbers on weekends, and we see more birds when
there are fewer hunters.

We found 96 species of birds. This is about 15 species below our average
count. John Martin Reservoir was totally frozen, except for one small
open area in the reservoir proper, and one tiny hole in the ice on Lake
Hasty. Our most common water birds were Snow, Ross', Cackling and Canada
Geese. Thousands were present, along with three Greater White-fronted
Geese. All other waterfowl were at numbers between one and two percent
of normal. For example, we had slightly more than 100 Common Mergansers:
we can get 12,000. We saw 35 Common Goldeneye, we average over 2,000.
With such tiny numbers of waterfowl, we didn't get any rare winter ducks
or other diving birds (scoters, Long-tailed Duck, diving ducks, grebes
or loons). We had only two species of gulls, Ring-billed and Herring.
Normally, we run the table on rare gulls. We missed one species,
American White Pelican by less than 24 hours. A live bird on December
16th was dead on count day. Thanks to abundant coyotes on the reservoir,
it was down to 1/2 of a pelican by noon, and gone by late afternoon.

We made up for our paucity of water birds with an abundance of land
birds. Topping the list were 13 Steller's Jays, in three separate
flocks. This is an astonishing montane invasion this far east. Since
this species has avoided detection farther to the west, I think a case
can be made that these birds originated in New Mexico, or even Mexico.
Other mountain species were absent, save for one Mountain Chickadee.
Some extraordinary eastern species, including one Gray Catbird, two
Brown Thrashers and one Winter Wren were detected. Sparrows put in a
good show, with sightings of White-throated, and multiple Swamp and
Lincoln's Sparrows. One male Northern Cardinal brightened the count for
one party: I think up to 5 pairs nest along the Purgatoire River above
the junction with the Arkansas River, but unfortunately, this is on
private property. We managed to find the only flock of Pine Siskins I
know of in SE Colorado at Rule Creek, and got rare winter sightings of
Lesser Goldfinch for the second consecutive winter.

As usual, my Las Animas yard, at the far western edge of the circle,
provided some excitement, this year NOT at my feeders. Mountain and
Eastern Bluebirds are wintering here, along with Great-tailed Grackles.

As usual, the JMR Count waits for the perfect storm of open water and
good land bird conditions that would enable a superlative count. And, as
a true Cubs fan would say, maybe next year!

Duane Nelson
Las Animas, Bent County, CO


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