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,
By my students’ calculations, we had spent over 50 hours trying to capture this particular Flammulated Owl, dating back two summers. Make no mistake—there have been many challenging owls to capture over the course of this 40-year demographic study, but this owl had drawn extra attention from the nine students working with me that summer, with its Houdini-esque tactics for evading capture at a nest cavity high in a quaking aspen.
The Karval Mountain Plover Festival began when Karval community members were looking at economic opportunities for this small community. We decided to “bring the bird lovers to the bird”. This is a weekend full of bird watching, Wildlife viewing tours, entertainment, history, arts and crafts, antiques, and LOTS OF GOOD FOOD!
Along with bird watching, here are some of the other things you will enjoy: You’ll get the chance to mingle with farmers and ranchers who choose to live in the local community and learn about their lifestyle. Eat home style food at every meal. Most meals are prepared by the community’s non-profit organizations. Saturday evening includes a Country dinner with authentic western entertainment. Learn about conservation practices and history of the area. Tour Private Land that would normally not be accessible. Make new friends!
Bird Conservancy staff will be at the event leading bird-watching tours and discussions about ecology, biology and natural resource management.
Visit https://mountainploverfestival.com/ for more information and to register!
Follow this LINK to download the festival brochure.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Black Swift is an aerial insectivore that has evolved an almost exclusive lifestyle on the wing. This species is of continental concern, but little is known about its movement ecology. We recently discovered a new behavior, an amazing adaptation to moon light and gained insight into their foraging patterns during the breeding season.
Tune into this webinar to learn what the Black Swift research team has learned from the Black Swift Movement Ecology project. This webinar is presented by Rob Sparks the Black Swift Research team lead at Bird Conservancy of the Rockies.
The program fee is $3 to attend this webinar.
In order to provide equitable access to all, complimentary tickets are available at no cost to the participant thanks to support from generous donors.
Follow this LINK to register!
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing the ZOOM link to be used the day of the webinar.