While on our way to Hamilton Reservoir we found 1 Golden Eagle and 2 Ferruginous Hawks on County Road 9. At Hamilton Reservoir we refound the 3 Long-tailed Ducks, but didn't see anything else of interest. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't an American Black Duck, Mexican Duck, or Mottled Duck there as there are thousands of Mallards around, but most are to far away to identify. A stop at North Poudre #3 had a Snow Goose with a large flock of white-cheeked geese. At Douglas Reservoir we found a Northern Shrike.
We then decided to drive around Long Pond looking for waxwings. We found a large flock of Cedars, but couldn't locate any Bohemians. We then tried to find a White-throated Sparrow in Bellvue, but failed on that.
We then drove out to Fossil Creek Reservoir where it was full of birds. The best bird I found was a Long-tailed Duck for the 4th of the day and the 5th different Long-tailed Duck I have seen in Larimer County so far this month. A few other birds of excitement was 1 Snow Goose, 25 Horned Grebes, 2 Red-breasted Mergansers, and 30 Gadwall.
A stop at Horseshoe Lake revealed the lake was still all frozen except for a small opening in the ice in the middle of the lake. The only bird in the water was a Common Merganser, but it was some birds on the edge of the ice I was more interested in. Ten gulls were standing on the ice and I realized 8 of them were adult Herring Gulls. The best bird was an adult ICELAND GULL, which is only the second adult I have ever seen. The other bird turned out to be a delayed first winter Lesser Black-backed Gull. It was probably the same bird that was seen in Loveland in mid-December and also seen at the beginning of January at Pueblo Reservoir. We then went looking for more gulls at Lake Loveland. From the swim beach I was able to see there was some open water on the southwest side of the lake, so we drove to the south end of the lake. Here we found 3 Thayer's Gulls (1 1st winter, 1 2nd winter, and 1 adult) and 2 1st winter Glaucous Gulls. At this point in time I dropped Tom off at his car.
I continued on to the Cattail Pond area. The only bird of interest was the Trumpeter Swan at Cattail Pond, which has not been at this location the last 2 days. I then talked to Cade Cropper and Nick Komar about the gulls. Nick was in a meeting, but Cade and I decided to meet back at Horseshoe Lake to look for the Iceland Gull. When we arrived at Horseshoe we quickly realized there was no gulls here. So, we decided to head to Lake Loveland and this is where the fun started.
On the south side of Lake Loveland I found 2 Horned Grebes and 4 Hooded Merganser, but the gulls were even more exciting. We were able to find not 2, but now 3 juvenile Glaucous Gulls. We also found 3 1st winter Thayer's Gulls and an adult, but couldn't find the 2nd winter. This makes 5 different Thayer's Gulls at this location this afternoon. We then saw 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (1 delayed 1st year, 1 2nd winter, and 1 adult). I then noticed the adult Iceland Gull sleeping behind a Herring Gull as I was only able to see the wingtips. When the Herring Gull moved we were finally able to get a great look at it. Shortly after all the gulls took off and flew towards the southwest. I called Nick and as I was calling he was just leaving work. I told him we should meet at Kmart and head to Carter Lake for the gull roost and Cade had to go home.
Nick and I got to Carter Lake and found 2 different flocks of birds. The close flock only had Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, but the other flock had a lot of birds of interest. We were able to find the 3 juvenile Glaucous Gulls that I watched fly from Lake Loveland, but then we found an adult Glaucous Gull. I was able to find 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and we were only able to positively ID 1 Thayer's Gulls, but we saw several probable birds. We never positively saw the adult Iceland Gull either. The best bird that we found was a bird first spotted by Nick and then team work to get all the field marks with a 1st year GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL that was close to one of the young Glaucous Gulls.
This was a special day for me with gulls as this was only the 2nd adult Iceland Gull I have ever seen and I saw it at two different lakes. I have only seen 1 adult Glaucous Gull in Larimer County before this one and it is the first time I have ever seen 4 Glaucous Gulls at one location. Also, this is only the 3rd Glaucous-winged Gull I have ever seen in Larimer County and the second was an adult at the same location in January.
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