It’s started, and the fall exodus of hundreds of millions of birds is becoming apparent at our feeding stations. David Menough of Wild Birds Unlimited offers tips on attracting migrants to your backyard and a fall departure-arrival schedule for the Front Range. It’s amazing to see these birds checking their datebooks for their departure days.
On July 25, 35 volunteers gathered along the Navajo River in southern Colorado to plant more than 200 native trees on two private properties. RMBO biologist Martin Moses writes about the project and the use a handy new tool: the water jet stinger.
Two vans packed with excited campers, staff and gear left Brighton, Colorado, and headed west to the Rockies for a week of hiking, rafting, exploring nature, birding and much more as part of RMBO’s Taking Flight camp. Summer Education Assistant Hannah Haas writes about this amazing week of camp and its impact on 15 young people.
Birds can migrate thousands of miles a year between their breeding and wintering grounds. Where, exactly, do they go? What routes do they take and where do they stopover? RMBO biologists set out to answer these questions for Western Tanagers and Swainson’s Thrushes that breed in Rocky Mountain National Park in a project for the National Park Service. CSU student Marina Rodriguez writes about this project and reveals whether the biologists were indeed successful.
Earlier this year, RMBO hosted forums to gauge feedback on a new Decision Support Tool. The tool helps compare management options that ensure the economic viability of grazing lands with the habitat needs of sagebrush-dependent songbirds and grouse.
Bird banding brings us cool birds, interesting insights and always new questions, and this spring was no exception. We again shared these experiences with hundreds of visitors, from toddlers to school kids to adults of all ages. Without further ado, here are the birdy highlights from the spring.
Every year at this time, we get calls from people who have spotted a baby bird out of its nest and want to know what to do. They’re concerned, and rightfully so. We all love our feathered friends and want to see their little ones survive and prosper, so we put together this blog post to share some useful insights and resources with you.
Variety keeps life exciting. This is not only true in our personal experiences, but in the way we present our backyard habitats to those creatures we are attempting to entice to these feeding areas. David Menough, owner of Wild Birds Unlimited of Arvada , offers tips on a variety of attractors you can use to entice more diverse populations of birds.
Since many bird species that breed in the Rockies and elsewhere in the western U.S. winter in Central America, it’s important for RMBO and partners to support and advance conservation abroad. In March, Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory coordinated a landmark meeting in San Vito, Costa Rica, to determine the conservation status of the birds of Central America.
Spring migration is under way. Just as the birds return north, so do the RMBO scientists who study them on their wintering grounds. Back home in Colorado, biologist Erin Strasser offers preliminary results from a second season studying winter survival and habitat use of Baird’s and Grasshopper Sparrows in the Chihuahuan Desert grasslands.
