Saturday the 13th started off chilly, though definitely not cold, but even without frozen water (which tends to concentrate geese and ducks), we had a decent showing of waterfowl at Lake Mcintosh. Lake Mcintosh in Northwest Longmont, is part of Longmont’s natural areas program and is a great place to watch birds all year round, but especially in the wintertime.
Due to the number of people who frequent the trail around the lake, many birds at Mcintosh are habituated to human presence. Such was the case for a young Bald Eagle we were able to get extremely close views of in the tree nearest the statue. I’ve noticed that tree seems to be THE favorite spot for the eagles to view the lake.
Did you know that, despite their 6 foot wingspan, Bald Eagles weigh only around 9 1/2 pounds? Because they can only lift about half their body weight, your small pet is most likely not in danger from a Bald Eagle. Still, remember to keep your dogs supervised and your cats inside due to other hazards to them and other wildlife!
I usually carry not only my binoculars and spotting scope with me when I go birding, but also a large camera, so this trip I took out Opticron’s new tripac spotting scope backpack to try to ease my load and give it a test run. The backpack fastens around the column and legs of your spotting scope so you can carry it on your back, freeing up your hands for taking pictures or using your binoculars. It was really secure and wasn’t uncomfortable to walk in. I could definitely see adding it my essential gear list for only $85.
Carrying the spotting scopes was a good call because most of the ducks we saw were on the other side of the lake, including several Northern Pintails and a whole host of Common Mergansers. Northern Pintails are a widespread, circumpolar dabbling duck with a long, graceful neck and tail. Males have a really interesting call that is reminiscent of a buzzy slide whistle.
From what we could determine, we didn’t have any unusual gulls (most of them were on the other side of the lake too) or songbirds, but in all we had 20 species, which wasn’t too bad for an abnormally warm winter morning. Hopefully we’ll see you at our next walk in the new year; happy holidays!
McIntosh Lake, Boulder, Colorado, US
20 species (+2 other taxa)
Cackling Goose 31
Canada Goose 60
American Wigeon 5
Mallard 9
Northern Pintail 3
Common Goldeneye 3
Common Merganser 60
duck sp. 7
Eurasian Collared-Dove 3
Ring-billed Gull 25
gull sp. 200
Great Blue Heron 1
Bald Eagle 2
Northern Flicker 2
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 1
Common Raven 1
European Starling 3
American Robin 1
House Finch 18
Song Sparrow 1
Red-winged Blackbird 16
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