Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Restful Afternoon at Cherry Creek Reservoir

December 16, 2014

Richard Stevens:

Today I sat at the Lake Loop at Cherry Creek Reservoir (Arapahoe County) for about 4.5 hours.  Afternoon light lit up the thousands of ducks in the center of the lake.  I tried to look at each bird, of course not totally possible.  The first two times I scanned the entire huge raft of ducks.  The third pass focused on just the front edge.

While scoping the raft, an adult Bald Eagle flew over and mixed the birds up when they flew around.  Low numbers of Western and Eared Grebes were a surprise as their numbers dominated in the past few trips.

Uncommon birds found included one Long-tailed Duck, two Greater Scaup, a Barrow's Goldeneye and five Red-breasted Mergansers.

Misses included the White-winged Scoter, additional Long-tailed Ducks, additional scoters and Red-necked Grebe(s).

Gulls numbered in the thousands.  No Bonaparte's Gulls were picked out.  Three Thayer's Gulls and two Lesser Black-backed Gulls were identified among the many gulls most of which were quite far from the shore.  The identified gulls were standing on ice between the Lake Loop and the southwest marina.

On the way home, I drove the DIA Owl Loop.  A sighting of Dave King and a Short-eared Owl was my reward for the detour.

No comments: