Native plants can add much to the home garden and landscape. Natives are beautiful, enhance yard biodiversity and attract many birds, small wildlife and pollinators. Get tips on selecting native plants for your lawn and create resilient, lovely, wildlife-friendly habitat.
Spring is nearly here, and with the changing seasons comes the spectacular migration of birds. We’re getting prepared and stoked for the upcoming bird banding season. To whet your appetite, we wanted to share the birdy highlights from the fall bird banding season. Enjoy!
Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory’s third season of studying survival and habitat use of Baird’s and Grasshopper Sparrows is under way on their wintering grounds in the grasslands of northern Mexico. Writing from Chihuahua, biologist Erin Strasser shares an update on capturing and tracking sparrows, insights gained so far this season and captivating photos from the field.
The Greater Sage-Grouse represents a special part of our country’s sagebrush steppe ecosystem. Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory is testing the effectiveness of different types of fence markers to help these grouse avoid collisions with fences. Field crew leader Taylor Gorman and biologist Nick Van Lanen offer insights from the first season of this study before heading back into the field.
To offer a day of service on Martin Luther King Day through citizen science, RMBO hosted its 3rd annual Christmas Bird Count for Kids on Jan. 19 at Barr Lake State Park. Educator Tyler Edmondson recounts the stellar day of birding and highlights the species observed by budding young birders.
Despite sub-zero temperatures, 34 volunteers took part in this year’s Christmas Bird Count at Barr Lake. Count compiler Chuck Hundertmark offers a report on birds observed that day, including new highs for three species and a new bird for the Barr Lake count.
Grazing options can be limited in the high country, when snow lingers in high-elevation pastures and areas can get too waterlogged for cattle. To increase grazing options on a ranch in the Middle Park area of Colorado, Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory helped to implement a project that will deliver water to an area of the ranch not previously suitable for grazing, allowing the rancher to keep cattle off other areas of the ranch that provide key habitat for Greater Sage-Grouse.
Many of us have witnessed the damaging effects of dementia on our loved ones. Nature has shown to be a precious key for unlocking memories, temperaments and attitudes in people suffering from this terrible disease. Since 2013, RMBO has offered a therapeutic program called Bird Tales to residents of assisted living facilities. Educator Tyler Edmondson writes about the program and its profound impact on both people with dementia and the staff members who care for them.
This fall, Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory caught a whopping 277 Northern Saw-whet Owls at banding stations in North and South Dakota. Among them were 9 recovered saw-whet owls, or birds banded at another station or during a different season. Where were the owls first banded, and when? Read this post to find out (hint: one was first banded about 660 miles northwest!).
In 2000, Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory began organizing an annual Barrow’s Goldeneye count in Colorado to monitor the wintering population of this species. Volunteer citizen scientists are needed to help with this year’s count, set for Nov. 22 to Dec. 2, 2014. The protocol is simple – get out to as many lakes and reservoirs across the state as possible and count Barrow’s Goldeneyes!
