Had a most awesome day of birding today! My dad(Nathan) and I went out chasing two rare birds that had recently been seen in the state.  Our targets were Snowy Owl near Barr Lake and Long-tailed Duck(Oldsquaw) at Duck Lake in Denver's City Park.
We started out chasing the Snowy Owl.  After about an hour of driving through the fields, we failed to see it and decided to head down to City Park.  While we were looking for the owl, we did see Ferrugious Hawk, Northern Harrier and Bald Eagle.
At City Park we found the Long-tailed Duck pretty easily.  This is a VERY rare bird for Colorado.  We were able to watch it for our entire time birding the lake.  It was mingling with Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Ring-necked Duck and a female Barrow's Goldeneye.  The Long-tailed Duck was my 297th Life Bird and the Barrow's Goldeneye was my 298th.  I was very excited to see my first Bufflehead of the year, as the Bufflehead is my second all time favorite bird.  We also saw Cackling Goose, Gadwall, Redhead, Northern Shoveler, Cooper's Hawk, American Wigeon and Hooded Merganser at Duck Lake.  We had a blast watching the Mergansers. We saw a female and a male. At one point, the female caught a crayfish, and the male harassed her for the better part of 5 minutes trying to steal the prize away from her.  After much chasing around the lake, the female finally succeeded in devouring the crayfish, after which, the male contented himself to sit on a log.  A few short seconds later, an American Coot chased the merganser off the log.  All in all, it was a most outstanding day of birding, one that I will remember for a long time.
 
The CBC on Dec. 17 was a blast! Our group leader was Lynn Wilcoxson.  Our group totaled six people, including my dad and myself.  Our Count area included Deer Creek Canyon Park, South Valley Park, the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield and Shield M Ranch, which made for a fun area to bird.  We tallied 29 different species on the count, including Golden Eagle at Deer Creek Canyon Park, a Pine Siskin at feeders near South Valley Park, a Cackling Goose at the Botanic Gardens and all three Colorado nuthatches.  The birding was pretty slow throughout the day, but was still fun.  
After the count, on our way home, my dad and I stopped by the lake in the Candelas area(just west of Stanley Lake and northwest of the Indiana St. and Hwy. 72 intersection.).  We were very happy we did.  We found two Tundra Swans(rare in Colorado) on the lake, along with a multitude of other waterfowl including a late season Double Crested Cormorant, Bufflehead, Ruddy Duck, Lesser Scaup, Common Goldeneye, Gadwall, Redhead and American Wigeon.  At the end of the day, my dad and I had compiled a day list of 42 species, which is a decent accomplishment in Colorado in this season.  
Keep watching the blog and site as I will have pics posted soon and I am starting to work on a COBirdingVid to get uploaded to YouTube as the first video for Bird Spy Films.  I will post a link when it's up=)
Happy birding everyone and hope you all are getting out there and having fun with the Christmas Bird Counts!
 
Winter has come and so have the winter birds! Keep your eyes out on open water for a great diversity of ducks, including Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, Scaup and more! Be keen on the possible rarity that might show up!