Have you ever wondered how bird conservation is coordinated across organizations and spatial scales? OK, maybe not, but imagine for a moment if it wasn’t. At all. Do you think there would be any hope of recovering populations and saving the hundreds of species that are spiraling towards extinction?
Bird Conservancy is currently recruiting volunteers to participate in Bald Eagle Watch. In partnership with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, staff and volunteers monitor Bald Eagles throughout Colorado, obtaining data that is needed for biologists to develop best practices for their conservation now and in the future, as the human population continues to grow.
What: Monitor and collect data on Bald Eagle nesting behavior and productivity. Report any disturbances that may impact nesting eagles. Information obtained helps wildlife managers and conservation groups ensure continued healthy populations of Bald Eagles.
When: Focus is on the breeding season, which is February to July. Many volunteers continue to monitor their nests year-round.
Where: Throughout Colorado. This year, we are particularly interested in recruiting volunteers who would like to monitor birds in or near the following counties – Garfield, Routt, Eagle, Mesa, Summit, Grand, Gilpin and Park
Who: Anyone who can monitor designated nest(s) weekly for a minimum of one hour, fill out a data sheet and enter it into an online reporting system; can drive to nest site; enjoys monitoring either alone or with another person; and has a spotting scope or binoculars
Training: Training, via ZOOM, will be held on Saturday, January 20, 2024, from 10 a.m. – 12 noon and 1 – 3:30 p.m. Attendance is mandatory, but anyone interested who is unable to participate that day may view the training at a later time.
To sign up to participate or for more information: E-mail [email protected] with your name, e-mail, phone number, and county.
As the summer slowly progresses towards fall many birds are finished nesting and feeding fledglings and are preparing for the next step in their annual cycle. Some will migrate south as far as Central and South America, while others will hunker down for winter in the same areas where they bred. Each morning the dawn chorus is a little quieter and the species list less diverse. To a technician working on the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) program this signals that the point counts are done for the year and they too will move on to their next adventure.
There are always eyes reflecting back in the beam of my headlamp. Usually, it is deer or elk, their silhouettes looking vaguely alien because of their large ears. Other times, it is a Common Poorwill that sits on the trail, eyes reflecting red, and flutters up in a panic when I walk too close. A handful of times it has been a bear, that crashes away through the undergrowth once it catches a whiff of this unwashed field tech and vanishes astonishingly quickly for an animal so large…
We were almost down to our camp when I noticed two beautifully round orbs staring at us from behind a bush. We both froze in our places while we racked our brains on what to do. It did not take long to draw from what we had learned in our training,
Being a birder means a lot of different things to many different people. Some birders go out every week to count and list as many species as they can find, while others have a yard list of the birds they identify from their window. Read below for a guest blog from Eric DeFonso, a Bird Conservancy seasonal field crew leader for our Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) program. Eric shows how sometimes, birding by sight is not always feasible or possible.
Bird Conservancy has been monitoring Mexican Spotted Owls since 2014. Learn why we are working on the project and the threats this elusive owl endures.
The Bird Conservancy of the Rockies’ social media posting on August 31 grabbed my attention. Featuring a close up of a Black Swift in hand, the accompanying post announced that the Black Swift Research Team had recently caught three Black Swifts, all of which had been banded 17 years ago in 2005 as adults, breaking the longevity record of oldest known for the species. My heart nearly stopped.
Did you enjoy our last post about IMBCR? In this post, we explore a brief overview of IMBCR’s unique study design, explore two of IMBCR’s core data products, and find out how you can use this freely-available data.
Every year, biologists and technicians traverse on foot across mountains, prairies, and deserts to survey breeding birds under the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) program. The second largest breeding bird monitoring program in North America, IMBCR’s footprint stretches across private and public land from the Great Plains to the Great Basin. Check out this StoryMap for a closer look at this impressive program!
