[cobirds] Weld/Larimer wanderings

In an effort to get some kind of itinerary together for a museum trip next week, I decided to go racing around northern Colorado in my usual aimless and pointless manner.  I picked up a few birds of interest along the way, so I though I'd pass along a few.  I menitoned the long-tailed duck ealier from the field.  It was at Windsor Lake (the one right in the town of Windsor, for those who don't frequent that 'hood too often), doing its best to hide in a raft of goldeneye (all commons, I think, but there were enough of them to be worth checking for Barrow's).  There were a number of other usual suspects, including common mergs (no red-breasted that I could find) and a quarter gazillion white-cheeks of both flavors.  A quick stop at the south end of Windsor Res. (is there a better spot from which to view this waterfowl gem?) revealed about three hundred snow geese.  They were about a Meredith out there (inside joke-sorry!); a little too far for me to pick out any Ross's.  There were probably a few in there, for those with better eyes/optics.  From there it was up to "Raptor Alley", where the pickins were fairly slim; a ferrug near Nunn and a merlin just north of Pierce were about all I could turn up. Sorry, Gary.  There is a large wild sunflower patch just north of Pierce where I figured I would make my bones by turning up redpolls, but nice numbers of tree sparrows were the best I could do.

From there, it was over to Hamilton upon Rawhide (sorry- my British heritage is showing) to check up on Dave's swans.  While there, I had a Derek Hill sighting, as well as the swans.  There were seven a-swimming, and these were at least two Merediths away. Put me right in the holiday spirit for about two minutes, before I reverted to curmudgeonness (if that isn't a word, I claim it for the crown).  There was also a nice variety of other, widely scattered waterfowl, including a white pelican with a busted wing, a couple of horned grebes, a mix of the usual dabblers and divers, a bunch of coots, two great blue herons, a few cormies, and not a loon in sight.  In fact, didn't get one all day.  Kind of odd.

From Hamilton, I decided to make a quick stop at Lake Loveland in the dying light.  Birds on the lake were rather sparse, but there were a couple of goodies.  There was a red-necked grebe chillin' with a small group of westerns- no doubt the same bird reported by Steve a couple of days ago.  There was one large raft of gulls that consisted mostly of the usual ringers and herrings.  There were probably a couple of more interesting ones mixed in, but a combination of rapidly failing light and my larophobia (which causes my retinas to seize up when presented with second- and third-cycle gulls) prevented me from digging any out. The biggest surprise was a large flock of Bonaparte's  that were near, but somewhat segregated from, the main gull raft.  I counted at least fifty, and more were coming in as it got dark.  I would never have picked them out had their smaller size and separation from the main group made it fairly easy.

All in all, a good early winter (yeah, yeah, don't come at me with that winter solstice stuff- winter starts on Dec. first- that's my story and I'm stickin' to it) day.

Norm Lewis

Lakewood, CO

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