Every year, the community of Karval in eastern Colorado comes together to celebrate the return of Mountain Plover to their fields, inviting birders from around the world to join in the moment and experience local hospitality and culture. Bird Conservancy’s Ryan Parker shares an update about this year’s Mountain Plover Festival (April 26-28, 2019) and the exciting things they have planned.
Traditional and high-tech tools are revealing details about where Mountain Plovers spend time during migration and over winter—highlighting critical habitat locations and guiding much-needed conservation efforts.
Every year in late spring and summer, our field season crew traipses across mountains, prairies and deserts to survey birds under the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) program. As this post from our of our field technicians attests, these rugged and remote landscapes don’t always make it easy!
The Central Plains Experimental Range in Northern Colorado provides the perfect place for researchers and ranchers to come together and explore new ways to achieve maximum economic yields alongside quality habitat for grassland birds.
2017 marks eleven consecutive years of data collection at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in Northern Colorado. This beautiful and ecologically important landscape is home to a diverse array of plants and animals—including over twenty species of grassland birds—that are uniquely adapted to life where the mountains meet the plains.
RMBO is partnering with the University of Colorado-Denver to support a graduate research project to better understand how Mountain Plovers utilize habitat during the nesting cycle. Biologists will study their foraging habits by tracking adult plovers using radio-telemetry. CSU student Jamie Osterbuhr writes about this research, taking place in the crop fields of western Nebraska.
Did you know that roughly 60% of the land area in the United States is privately owned? That amounts to a lot of land, about 1.43 billion acres. These lands not only provide the food, fiber, energy and timber that make our nation hum, but harbor some of the most important habitat for birds. Released yesterday, the State of the Birds 2013 report, with contributions from RMBO, focuses on these private lands and their importance for successful stewardship of birds and their habitats in the U.S.
RMBO’s field crew discovered its first Mountain Plover nest of the season on May 8. After the cold start to spring, this newly laid nest with a clutch of three eggs was an important find. Biologist Larry Snyder writes about the find and RMBO’s plover nest conservation program on the RMBO blog.
Twenty fourth-graders, grouped in teams of 3 and 4, hold their hands above their buzzers as biologist Andrew Pierson reads the question. He scans the 20 pairs of eyes watching him, letting the anticipation build, and finishes the question. Hands hit buzzers, bells ring and a light comes on to indicate which team was first. Answers fly, and the points for the correct one are tallied for the winning team. Just another day, just another PEEP program.
