Visit the bird banding station at Chatfield to witness real research in action and see warblers, sparrows, woodpeckers, thrushes, and other songbirds up close! Operated in partnership with Denver Audubon.
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Visit the bird banding station at Chatfield to witness real research in action and see warblers, sparrows, woodpeckers, thrushes, and other songbirds up close! Operated in partnership with Denver Audubon.
Visit the bird banding station at Chatfield to witness real research in action and see warblers, sparrows, woodpeckers, thrushes, and other songbirds up close! Operated in partnership with Denver Audubon.
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies researchers are developing a network of automated radio telemetry stations to study the movement of grassland birds. This work will help fill in missing information about where these birds go during migration, and will ultimately help managers better conserve important grasslands for the birds to use into the future.
Are you interested in volunteering as a community scientists to monitor Bald Eagle nests with Bird Conservancy of the Rockies? If so, please join us for a virtual volunteer training on Saturday, January 23!
Training will be held over Zoom and will be split into two, half-day digital sessions – one for new and one for experienced volunteers. Each session will be about 2 hours long and will offer opportunities for volunteer questions and feedback.
- New Volunteer Training: Saturday, January 23, 9-11:00 a.m.
- Returning Volunteer Training: Saturday, January 23, 1-3:00 p.m.
Registration is required – click here to register!
Questions? Please contact Kelsey Mazur, Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator
About Bald Eagle Watch
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies’ Bald Eagle Watch program was started in 1988 to monitor and help protect the Bald Eagle nest at Barr Lake State Park northeast of Denver. Now, community scientists with the Bird Conservancy monitor eagle nests across the Front Range to provide information to biologists on the nesting success of the Colorado population.
Photo credit: Bald Eagle catches a fish at Barr Lake – Feb 18, 2011. Photo NikoJim Flickr CC by 2.0
Every year, our friends at Rocky Mountain Raptor Program in Fort Collins, CO receive over 300 injured, sick and orphaned birds. They are nursed back to health and more than 80% of them are released back into the wild. Last fall, bird banders at our Barr Lake State Park station enjoyed the opportunity to meet one of the recipients of their kindness in person!
We had a banner year at our banding station at Wildcat Hills State Recreation Area in Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska. 2020 proved to be our busiest season there to date. We set new highs for total banded birds and added several new species that had never been banded there before. All of this was while simultaneously adapting to meet health and safety guidelines that enabled visitors to experience bird banding firsthand in a safe way.
The Chihuahuan Desert population of Northern Aplomado Falcon shrunk dramatically a century ago and was lost from the southwestern U.S. A tiny population survived in Mexico, but its continued survival is tenuous due to habitat loss and other factors. A tri-national partnership is monitoring this population’s breeding success and conducting a demographic study that includes satellite telemetry of juvenile falcons. What we are learning is guiding conservation and helping gain support from private landowners on the ground. The recent appearance of a young male falcon in New Mexico fosters hope that the Northern Aplomado Falcon might even be able to someday recolonize the Southwestern U.S.
Forest management has evolved rapidly over the last two decades as land managers strive to find a balance between wildlife habitat needs, resource utilization, fire mitigation, and resilience to climate change. Using birds as indicators, Bird Conservancy and partners explored the impacts of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program and how modern forest management approaches are shaping avian biodiversity in treated landscapes.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Bird Banding Laboratory, the federal agency responsible for overseeing all bird banding efforts in the United States and Canada. Here we’ll take a look at why banding is such a powerful tool for research while highlighting a few of our projects that put banding to use. With the fall banding season rapidly approaching, its a good time to reexamine what makes a bird in the hand so valuable.
