I arrived at the Big Thompson River on Wilson Avenue at 7:10 AM. I got out of my car with only one other car in the parking lot and started walking towards the phoebe location when I spotted a sparrow pushing up towards the top of Rabbitbrush. In a very brief view I noticed an eye ring, streaked breast, a gray head, and a brown body. It then flew across Wilson Ave and I then noticed a black tail with a little bit of white on each side of the tail. This was a Sage Sparrow (140). Several people have looked for it since and unfortunately have not been able to find it. When I was getting close to the location of the phoebe I heard it start singing and did it ever. I quickly found it and started getting photographs. During the 10 minutes of observation it sang the entire time. This is the earliest Eastern Phoebe (141) I have ever seen in Colorado and it is the earliest ever in Larimer County. This was a great find Elaine Coley.
I then had to quickly leave as I was leading a water bird tour for the Fort Collins Audubon and had to meet in Fort Collins. The trip turned out well. We stopped at several locations in 4 different counties and saw 53 species of birds. Some of the highlights included a Franklin's Gull, 5 American White Pelicans, 1 Double-crested Cormorant, 1 dark phase Red-tailed Hawk, Bald Eagle sitting on the nest, Hooded Merganser (species 50 for the day), and my favorite of the day was actually a mammal - Mink.
After the trip I busted over to Lake Loveland to see the gulls come in to roost. A quick scan quickly produced a very interesting dark backed gull. After watching it in flight I noticed bright pink legs. With a dark back and pink legs it rules out most species of gulls and the only gulls I know of that it can be is Western Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, or a hybrid. Cade Cropper showed up minutes after I lost it while it was flying around, but after searching for 5 minutes Cade refound sitting back on the water. We carefully watched it and noticed other features on the bird. It was slightly smaller next to the Lesser Black-backed Gull it was sitting next to, but it was a large Lesser Black-backed Gull as it was the same size as the Herring Gulls. It was also one or two shades lighter than the Lesser Black-backed also. The back color was the same shade of black as Colorado's first Western Gull which showed up on June 1, 2011 at Chatfield Reservoir and stayed for a couple of weeks. Photos I took of Colorado's first Western Gull can be seen at http://www.pbase.com/birdingwild1/image/136525261 and http://www.pbase.com/birdingwild1/image/136525262. The Loveland bird had a fairly heavy bill and an all white head. Looking carefully at it in flight we never saw any 'string of pearls' on the primaries and it had quite a bit of black on the primaries which eliminates Slaty-backed Gull. Also, after careful study we noticed a mostly white P9 primary feather, which with the P9, the bulky shape, and everything else I mentioned this makes for good odds that it is a Western Gull. I was not able to see the eye color or the iris color (ring around the eye). If after doing more research and this turns out to be a Western Gull then it would be Larimer County year bird 142 and it would be a first Lairmer County record. While watching the probable Western Gull we saw a large gull, actually the largest gull on the lake. This gull turned out to be an adult Glaucous-winged Gull. The primaries appeared to be about the same color as the back (if it wasn't it was only 1 or 2 shades darker than the back). It had a gray back, a very large bill, and a lot of markings on the head. Yet another gull of interest was a very pale gull, which while it was facing towards us appeared to be an Iceland Gull, but then it turned and had black primaries. This gull turned out to be a very bleached Thayer's Gull, which was 1 of 4 Thayer's Gulls we ended up seeing.
On 3/18 I decided to start the day at Lake Loveland hoping to find any of these interesting gulls. When I got there at first light I realized there was only about 20 gulls present. Of these there was 1 adult Thayer's Gull, 3 California Gulls, and all the rest was Ring-billed Gulls. Stops at other locations around Loveland produced the same results. At dusk I met up with Nick Komar to watch the gulls again at Lake Loveland. Only about half of the gulls arrived as was here the night before. We could only locate one gull of interest and it was an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull.
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