Another summer in the Northern Great Plains has come and gone, now fleeting as quickly as it arrived. With it, the many birds who travel thousands of miles to call these grasslands home during the breeding season have begun to make the long journey back to their wintering grounds. For the many ranchers and farmers of eastern Montana, the work is not done.
Once a year each winter, dozens of volunteers congregate at Barr Lake State Park to dedicate their day to a singular purpose: tally every bird of every species seen within a 15-mile diameter circle centered on Barr Lake. This tradition has been taking place every year since 1980 at Barr Lake, but the origins of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) go back much further.
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 Bird Migration Explorer reveals migration data consolidated for 458 bird species found in the United States and Canada. It allows users to see the most complete data collected on migratory species in their neighborhoods and where those birds go throughout the year. Read on to find out how Bird Conservancy was involved in the creation of this platform.
Summer camp experiences are needed now more then ever. What is it about summer camps that keep children coming back? Is it the birds? Making friends? The fun games? Or is it the culture of the camp? In this blog we will hear from two campers about what makes Bird Camp special to them.
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!
