Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Birding Around Denver; Adams & Arapahoe Counties

March 30, 2011

Richard Stevens:

While out doing chores today, I stopped at several locations. Winds were steady at 18+ mph with gusts to 32 mph. This made seeing birds on the lakes extremely difficult.

DIA Owl Loop (Adams County)
Burrowing Owls
(2) Picadilly Road between 128th & 120th avenues
(2) 3.4 miles east of Tower Road & 96th avenue
(1) 0.3 miles north of Tower Road & 56th avenue

12+ Great-tailed Grackles at the Picadilly Tree Nursery feedlot
Eurasian Collared-Doves

Cherry Creek Reservoir (Arapahoe County)
Could not find the Semipalmated Plover (I did put photos of it taken Sunday on the CoBus Photo Library). The Greater Yellowlegs was still there, 50 yards west of the bird observation platform. The Common Loon could not be relocated either. High winds made for large and cold waves.

I was excited when one of the smaller gulls off the bird observation platform at the Prairie Loop had a noticeable darker mantle than the other 120 gulls. It turned out to be a Mew Gull among the Ring-billed Gulls.

One of the adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls (Petrosky, 3/25) was on the sandspit at southwest marina. I left my digiscoping camera on the rocks at the bird platform. Fortunately, it was still there 25 minutes later; however, the Mew Gull had flown off.

Barr Lake (Adams County)
Not much. Two Great Horned Owls in Adams County have white owlets looking out their nests.

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