Our banding trainee position strives to provide technical bird banding experience to foster future ornithologists. While learning these skills the trainee also becomes part of the community at the banding station. Lauren is our second banding trainee at the Barr Lake banding station. Read on to hear more about her time at the station.
Fly over to Barr Lake State Park to celebrate fall bird migration, an experience worth sharing with others! Be entertained at this festive community event filled with fun for all ages!
*Spanish translation available at event
Thank you to our sponsors:
Do you enjoy exploring the natural world and discovering new things, building your bird list, and connecting with fellow nature lovers and bird enthusiasts?
Then join us for the 2023 Bird Conservancy of the Rockies BioBlitz and Community Science Celebration! Enjoy a day of exploration as we count as many different species as we can at Barr Lake State Park, learn about the park’s biodiversity, and celebrate community science!
You’ll join scientists and experts on short walks around Barr Lake State Park where you search for, identify and record as many species as possible! Do you like birds? Join the ornithologists group! Do you want to learn about plants? Join the botanists group! Do you want practice your bird identification skills? Join a bird walk! Just want to hang out and enjoy a beautiful Colorado day? There will be lots of things to do at the Nature Center base camp! You can join survey groups anytime between 7:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
(additional surveys are being added daily so check back often!)
BioBlitz participation is free, but there is a $10 state park fee unless you have an Annual State Parks Pass.
Update from the field! Seasonal Bird Conservancy banders are working in the Chihuahuan Desert this winter to tag non-breeding grassland birds for our Motus project. Read the blog to learn more about what they are doing and how it will aid in our efforts to help grasslands and the birds that call it their home.
My name is Emily Munch and I was the first ever Banding Trainee for Bird Conservancy of the Rockies at the Barr Lake banding station this past fall. My role was to learn how to safely extract birds from mist nets and how to identify, age, sex, and band birds.
Fly over to Barr Lake State Park to celebrate fall bird migration, an experience worth sharing with others! Be entertained at this festive community event filled with fun for all ages!
*Sign up for these activities at the Bird Conservancy booth the day of.
Every year, our friends at Rocky Mountain Raptor Program in Fort Collins, CO receive over 300 injured, sick and orphaned birds. They are nursed back to health and more than 80% of them are released back into the wild. Last fall, bird banders at our Barr Lake State Park station enjoyed the opportunity to meet one of the recipients of their kindness in person!
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Bird Banding Laboratory, the federal agency responsible for overseeing all bird banding efforts in the United States and Canada. Here we’ll take a look at why banding is such a powerful tool for research while highlighting a few of our projects that put banding to use. With the fall banding season rapidly approaching, its a good time to reexamine what makes a bird in the hand so valuable.
A visit to the banding station sparks wonder and curiosity. This hands-on learning opportunity engages the community in our work and inspires the next generation of nature stewards.
