December 28, 2009
About an hour before sunrise, I sat in my not too warm car and waited to see if Short-eared Owls would show up at Cherry Creek Reservoir (Arapahoe); none did.
Next, I drove over to Aurora Reservoir to scope for gulls with Gary Weston. Again, thousands of White-cheeked Geese swam in the middle of the reservoir. We could see several Snow Geese, however could not determine if any were Ross's Geese.
We scoped the scuba diving area (east end of dam) for about an hour. The adult Thayer's Gull was still there (could not find the 1st cycle Thayer's Gull). A dozen Herring Gulls were among hundreds of Ring-billed Gulls.
At the swim beach, several hundred additional Ring-billed Gulls stood on the ice. We could not find the Mew Gull during our 1.5 hour stay.
Again, there was too much snow for us to walk around the 8.0 mile bike path. The uncommon gulls could have been on the southeast side. In addition, many of the gulls fly back and forth during the day to the Landfill just north of the reservoir.
Quincy Reservoir had few birds. Cherry Creek Reservoir was slow also. Both were completely snow and ice covered (except for a small area of open water at eastern end of Cherry Creek Reservoir). The pair of American White Pelican has moved on and hopefully they did not die and were eaten by predators.
The few gulls at Cherry Creek Reservoir were 2 Herring and 58 Ring-billed Gulls. A Great Horned Owl called from the southern end of the Campgrounds.
About an hour before sunrise, I sat in my not too warm car and waited to see if Short-eared Owls would show up at Cherry Creek Reservoir (Arapahoe); none did.
Next, I drove over to Aurora Reservoir to scope for gulls with Gary Weston. Again, thousands of White-cheeked Geese swam in the middle of the reservoir. We could see several Snow Geese, however could not determine if any were Ross's Geese.
We scoped the scuba diving area (east end of dam) for about an hour. The adult Thayer's Gull was still there (could not find the 1st cycle Thayer's Gull). A dozen Herring Gulls were among hundreds of Ring-billed Gulls.
At the swim beach, several hundred additional Ring-billed Gulls stood on the ice. We could not find the Mew Gull during our 1.5 hour stay.
Again, there was too much snow for us to walk around the 8.0 mile bike path. The uncommon gulls could have been on the southeast side. In addition, many of the gulls fly back and forth during the day to the Landfill just north of the reservoir.
Quincy Reservoir had few birds. Cherry Creek Reservoir was slow also. Both were completely snow and ice covered (except for a small area of open water at eastern end of Cherry Creek Reservoir). The pair of American White Pelican has moved on and hopefully they did not die and were eaten by predators.
The few gulls at Cherry Creek Reservoir were 2 Herring and 58 Ring-billed Gulls. A Great Horned Owl called from the southern end of the Campgrounds.
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