Front Range
Birding Blog

It was a cold, but clear morning when 9 intrepid birders set out for Peschel Open Space. Peschel is a hidden gem in the Weld County portion of Longmont near Sandstone Ranch. While the St. Vrain Greenway trail was heavily damaged by the devastating 2013 flood and parts of it only reopened earlier this year,…

Eight of us had a productive morning birding on a gloriously nice fall day.  The waterbirds were great, with two species of geese, fourteen species of ducks, plus a couple of Pied-billed Grebes, and some American Coots. Of special note here was a single Snow Goose amidst a long, long line of Canada Geese passing overhead. …

Saturday, what with cold, drizzling rain and gusting winds, was not necessarily a good day for fair-weather birders, and about half the folks registered for our bird walk were no-shows. Those who did show up, all women by the way, were totally psyched to be there, well prepared for the weather, and had a great time.…

This morning’s walk was a bit abbreviated as cold rain mixed with a bit of sleet sent us scurrying back to the cars posthaste.  Prior to that though we were able to enjoy a productive couple of hours working on our duck identifications.  We did not work on geese or grebe IDs because we saw…

It was another great morning at Hudson Gardens.  We spent a fair amount of time working on the finer details of identifying five duck species. On Gadwalls the male has the big black rump and has silver tertials (the flight feathers closest to the body), and the female though relatively drab has white secondaries that when…

Throughout the summer when looking at ducks, most of what we see in the Denver area are Mallards with occasionally a few of the three teal species, and perhaps a Wood Duck, Northern Pintail, Redhead, or Common Merganser.  It’s possible to see some other species, but they are pretty uncommon.  Then, as we progress through…

     The greatest lesson of fall birding is to expect the unexpected. Yesterday’s visit to Barr Lake State Park and its banding station run by the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies is a prime example. While the weather at a glance looked like it would be poor for birding, a cold front sweeping in…

Fourteen of us had a rather slow morning at Chatfield.  There were periods of almost total silence with regard to the avian community. However, we persisted, and managed to get a reasonable number of species even though the total number of individuals was quite low. So, what did we not see?  We whiffed on Canada Geese,…

Saturday was a wonderfully mild morning for August, and six of us had a great time strolling through the peaceful environs of Hudson Gardens and along the South Platte.  The male Mallards were all clearly still in eclipse plumage – that time of year when male plumage is very like female – and the only…

Our group of 13 intrepid high-elevation birders and wildflower enthusiasts enjoyed the FRBC Birder’s Breakfast (featuring Birds ‘n’ Beans Organic, Shade-Grown, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center-certified “Bird-Friendly” coffee – always for sale at FRBC!) before car-pooling up to join Kimberly Beck, our wildflower expert, atop Guanella Pass.  Guanella Pass is certainly popular with hikers on summer…