Weekly Bird Counts

Incredibly there is still some wildlife down at the lagoon right now despite the large-scale construction efforts that are almost completely encircling this little wetlands right now. One of our dedicated volunteers and spring 2010 innovatorship award winners Sarah Thomas has been leading the way in developing a method for scientifically monitoring the bird species at the Lagoon. We have been recording the species abundance, species behaviors, and species habitat use for the past 3 Monday mornings and plan to continue this effort as we develop a protocal for citizen-based bird monitoring at Colorado Lagoon. Here are the abundance numbers for those counts:

May 24th

Species Name		Quantity
1	Ring-billed Gull	1
2	Killdeer	1
3	Western Blue Bird	2
4	Snowy Egret	2
5	Forster's Turn	1
6	American Crow	2
7	Lesser Scaup	1
8	Cassin's Kingbird	1
9	Black Phoebe	2
10	Barn Swallow	2
11	Western Gull	1
12	House Finch	5
13	Mallard hybrid	4
14	Pied-billed Grebe	1
15	Spotted Sandpiper	1
16	American Coot	1

May 31st

Species Name		Quantity
1	Forster's Turn	2
2	Snowy Egret	6
3	American Crow	8
4	Western Gull	2
5	Great Blue Heron	1
6	Western Blue Bird	1
7	Double Crested Cormorant	1
8	House Finch	2
9	Cliff Swallow	5
10	Pied-Billed Grebe	1
11	American Coot	1
12	Lesser Scaup	1
13	Cassin's Kingbird	1
14	Black Phoebe	3
15	Mourning Dove	2
16	Rock Pigeon	3
17	Mallard Hybrid	5

June 7th

Species Name		Quantity
1	Double Crested Cormorant	2
2	Barn Swallow	1
3	Lesser Scaup	1
4	House Finch	8
5	Black Phoebe	1
6	Hummingbird spp.	3
7	American Coot	1
8	Snowy Egret	2
9	Hybrid Mallard	5
10	Great Blue Heron	1

Our full datasheets will soon be available on coloradolagoon.org. This bird monitoring program is all part of FOCL's strides to develop a comprehensive environmental monitoring program in partnership with CSU Long Beach. The results will help quantify the success of this multi-million dollar restoration project and allow for the project to be adaptively managed...making a better Lagoon for all creatures! If you want to get involved just contact us at education@coloradolagoon.org

I also want to express how much we miss Rich Sonnenberg down at the Lagoon. His passion and dedication to birding is what inspires us to continue studying the avian populations at Colorado Lagoon, which he has done for many years. His guidance is missed and we look forward to him returning back to the Lagoon's perimeters very soon.