Birders,
The John Martin Reservoir CBC was conducted on December 14th. Due to concerns about covid, the count this year was deliberately kept small, with eight participants (plus one driver). The participants were mostly local. The count was held two days after a major winter storm deposited about five inches of very wet snow. With temperatures on count day dropping to 6 degrees F, a lot of water flash froze prior to the count, and some land birds apparently departed because of the snow. As a result, some staked out birds were not present on count day. Complicating the count, one local party cancelled at the last minute when a participant fell ill. The rest of us amended our segments of the count, and we were able to have a complete count.
The unofficial tally for the count is 109 species, plus 10 additional species during the count week. The official count was on the upper end of average for this count, while the number of Count Week (CW) birds was much larger than normal due to the rapid change from late fall to winter during CW. Although the number of Hooded and Common Mergansers and Common Goldeneyes were in the thousands, it was hard to find many other species of waterfowl, which mostly came in small numbers. Perhaps the most uncommon duck was a Long-tailed Duck. There were still some Eared Grebes, American White Pelicans and Double-crested Cormorants around, but a lone Western Grebe was present only through the 13th.
I found a group of 14 Killdeer CW, standing on newly formed ice. They were a no-show on Count Day. Our hard-working Reservoir scoper had a number of gull species, including Bonaparte's (they almost always leave the day ice starts to form, expected Iceland (Thayer's), Lesser Black-backed, California, and a Glaucous-winged thingy.
Unexpected were four White-winged Doves, and scattered Mourning Doves. Good woodpeckers included Ladder-backed, Lewis's and Rocky mountain race Hairy. A Say's Phoebe, very rare this far east in winter, was only the second for the count.
A staked out Steller's Jay did not disappoint in the woodlands near the junction of the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers. In close proximity were three Northern Cardinals, two Brown Thrashers, four Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays and 14 Eastern Bluebirds. Two groups found Mountain Bluebirds, rare away from canyonlands this time of year here. Somehow, Mountain Chickadee and White-breasted Nuthatch were missed, having been seen the day before.
A resident Carolina Wren, present for at least three years, finally graduated from CW status to the Big Day.
Sparrows were sparse, but one white-striped White-throated Sparrow showed up at a woodland site where I'd scattered seed the day before. An unexpected Vesper Sparrow was photographed, elevating it's status from CW to the big show. One party found Rusty Blackbird, always hard to find.
There was one new bird for the count, two Purple Finches that were found while scouting on December 13th, and still present on Count Day. Two other parties saw the Purple Finches, Northern Cardinal and Brown Thasher in the afternoon. I'm sure all got better pictures than me.
Our big miss was a Yellow-billed Loon, found in November by Steve Mlodinow. We got it for CW, but settled for a Common Loon still present on Count Day.
We missed a number of species that are almost guaranteed most years here: Rock Wren, Canyon Wren, Greater Roadrunner, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Western Screech-Owl (although I got an Eastern in the fog and rime before sunrise), Sora and I'm sure more. Although this was an extremely satisfying count, we can't help but wonder what the upper limit of this count could be if all the stars aligned just once.
Duane Nelson
Las Animas, Bent County, CO
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