The next stop in Fort Collins things had changed as the wind had decreased and there was lots of birds around. On our drive in we saw several species of ducks and I was able to get photos of a couple of them. We tried several spots for Winter Wren when I saw what looked like an interesting hawk fly in, unfortunately it turned out to be a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. On our way out we saw a male Wood Duck underneath the tree where I saw a pair of them last week.
A quick stop by Prospect Ponds allowed us to find all three ponds completely frozen. With a little breeze in Fort Collins we decided we could continue on to the Wellington area to look for a couple targets. Our first stop was a North Poudre #3 and the wind was the strongest we encountered all day. With that all we could find at this location was 12 Common Goldeneye. At this point in time it seemed best to go back down to Fort Collins in hopes the wind hadn't picked up there, but on the way back down another quick stop this time at Douglas Reservoir allowed us to find yet another Bald Eagle and nothing but ice.
When we were getting back towards north Fort Collins we decided to give another try for the Red-bellied Woodpecker at a private residence by Wellington, perhaps the third time will be a charm. When we pulled up I looked at the feeder it has been coming to, nothing, wait a woodpecker in the tree above the feeder. False alarm, it's a Downy Woodpecker. Oh, is that a red patch I see going up the same tree? "There it is" I said as I was pulling the binoculars to my eyes. Yes, this is it. I quickly got Tom on the bird and got my camera. I quickly took five shots and the bird flew towards the north. Just in time to see the Red-bellied Woodpecker (113). A drive around Horsetooth Reservoir quick walk around Dixon Reservoir didn't produce anything new for the day.
Then perhaps since it is not windy in Fort Collins then Loveland will not be windy, we were wrong yet again. When we got to our next destination, Big Thompson River Walk, it was windy yet again. We ended up seeing 17 species, but yet again, nothing of interest. At Cattail Pond the Trumpeter Swan was back, but a good number of ducks that had been present all year had departed.
Other than the continuing pair of Hooded Mergansers at Ryan's Gulch Reservoir we couldn't find anything else of interest at Bud Mielke Reservoir, Lon Hagler Reservoir, Bonnel Drive Pond, or Nadine Qt. feeders. That was the end to our windy, but satisfying day.
After hearing about a possible adult Glaucous-winged Gull at McIntosh Reservoir in northern Boulder County it made me wonder if some of those birds are the birds that is roosting at Carter Lake. So, at 3:40 I decided to take the chance with the wind and brave Carter. Fortunately when I stepped outside my house I realized the wind had completely stopped and I had hoped it had done the same up on the mountain. The wind had stopped I realized when I got up there, well at least for most of the gull watching. At 4:00 when I first got on the lookout there was no gulls present, but by 4:30 they were starting to arrive in numbers. Although they were arriving later than they did last week and cloudy towards the west making it get dark earlier I was still able to find 5 species of gulls. Through the hundreds of Ring-billed and about a hundred Herring I was able to find 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 4 Thayer's Gulls, and 1 adult GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL (114). This was only the second Glaucous-winged Gull I have ever seen in Larimer County. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any photos of this bird as by the time it came in there was to many other gulls around it and it was getting to dark. One other gull of interest that I found was a gull slightly larger than the nearby Herring Gulls in size, but in weight and structure it looked bigger than that. It had a dark chocolate colored body and neck with black wingtips. It had a nearly all dark bill, but the most interesting thing was the white head, but with brown lores (part of the head between the bill and the eye). I was able to get a poor digiscoped photo of it with my iPhone. Hopefully this photo will be good enough to get some sort of idea on what it is, but I doubt this bird will ever be positively identified.
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