Nine of us enjoyed a great morning at Barr Lake visiting with Meredith McBurney and her crew of assistants as they banded birds at the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies’ banding station.  For about thirty years the Conservancy has been doing this at Barr in the fall and at Chatfield in the spring, both known as potentially great migratory bird stopovers.  

Using mist nets, birds are harmlessly trapped, they’re removed from the nets, data is collected on them, a small, numbered band is placed on a leg, and then they’re released.  Each of these bands has a unique number on it so that, if the bird is recaptured, we can know where and when it was banded, thus learning a bit about the timing and route of that species’ migration.  Additionally, a couple of tail feathers are removed from each bird for DNA analysis. Over evolutionary time, bird populations living in different regions can accumulate their own distinct sets of genetic markers, which allow scientists to match a bird to the regional population it came from, no matter where they catch it.  So, we are starting to get maps of where each population breeds, spends the winter, and what its migration route is.

It had rained pretty much continuously overnight, but Meredith’s crew had gotten the mist nets open by about 7:20, we were at the station by 8:00 and ended up spending almost two hours there.  Birds that we got to see in the hand, and that some of us got to briefly hold included: a feisty Gray Catbird, a Hermit Thrush, a few White-crowned Sparrows, a Spotted Towhee, some Orange-crowned Warblers, a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers, and two Wilson’s Warblers.  Most of these got to be looked at and discussed in detail.

Following our wonderful visit at the banding station we wandered out to the flats surrounding the reservoir, which was as low as I have ever seen it.  Here we got to see a few duck and gull species along with the usual Western Grebes, Double-crested Cormorants, and White Pelicans.  The cormorants and the pelicans will be pretty much gone by early November.  The Western Grebes will stick around until the end of November when most of them will be gone.  Occasionally, some of these three species may be seen in the winter, but that’s a rare occurrence.  As for the ducks, it is during the winter that we get the largest number and variety, so that show will be getting better very quickly now.  The truly surprising sighting of the morning, though at a distance, was of a pair of Black-necked Stilts.  These strikingly beautiful shorebirds are generally gone from Colorado by early September, so it was fun to be able to pick up on them.

Good birding!
Chuck

Barr Lake banding station, Oct 1, 2022
42 species
9 participants

Canada Goose  200
Northern Shoveler  66
Mallard  8
Green-winged Teal  26
Ruddy Duck  6
Western Grebe  320
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)  16
Eurasian Collared-Dove  4
American Coot  15
Black-necked Stilt  2
Killdeer  5
Franklin’s Gull  25
Ring-billed Gull  500
California Gull  3
Double-crested Cormorant  80
American White Pelican  70
Great Blue Heron  5
Northern Harrier  3
Bald Eagle  3
Red-tailed Hawk  2
Downy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  5
Say’s Phoebe  1
Blue Jay  5
Black-billed Magpie  6
American Crow  3
Black-capped Chickadee  1
Barn Swallow  30
European Starling  40
Gray Catbird  3 
Hermit Thrush  1
American Robin  1
House Sparrow  40
American Goldfinch  2
Chipping Sparrow  5
White-crowned Sparrow (Gambel’s)  5
Spotted Towhee  6
Western Meadowlark  2
Red-winged Blackbird  12
Orange-crowned Warbler  6
Yellow-rumped Warbler  2
Wilson’s Warbler  2