Front Range
Birding Blog

A group of 12 of us started our walk around 8:00 a.m. on a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the mid-70’s. Though August is a bit of a quiet time for birds, we ended up seeing 25 species, with a total of 210 individuals. We had some excellent spotters in our group, and we…

Old Saint Vrain Road in Lyons, Colorado is a gem for birders owing to the fact that it is what is known as an “ecotone.” An ecotone is a transition zone between one habitat and another and tends to be very biologically active because of that mixing. Old Saint Vrain transitions between riparian, rocky cliffs,…

Beaver Ranch is a multi-use, 450-acre park operated and managed by a local non-profit, Beaver Ranch Community, in agreement with Jeffco Open Space.  The Front Range Birding Company has been leading bird walks there now for three years, and when birding seems slow elsewhere it continues to deliver a good variety of birds.  This is despite all…

Our Saturday walk at Heil Valley Ranch consisted of a good crew of seven. The Cal Wood fire torched the area 2 years ago, killing much of the Ponderosa canopy in the area. Because of this, the vegetation that is coming back is quite weedy, consisting mostly of common mullein and musk thistle. This has…

The area we visited Saturday morning near the Denver Audubon Nature Center is a popular birding destination; so much so that it is here that Denver Audubon regularly offers their Bird the Wetlands programs and the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies has its annual spring migration banding station (mid-April through May).  As with much of Chatfield…

A hot, sunny morning awaited us at Walker Ranch for our June 11, 2022 second Saturday bird outing with Front Range Birding Company Boulder. Walker Ranch is a Boulder County Open Space property located in the foothills at about 7,300’ elevation. The Meyers Homestead Trail follows Meyers Gulch, a drainage that feeds into South Boulder…

The bird walk on June 7 was at Sawhill Ponds, a City of Boulder property. The former gravel mines turned wetland ponds offer great year-round birding opportunities. The summer breeding season brings many migrants to the area looking for good nesting spots and plenty of insect prey. With the sun rising earlier this time of…

Waterton Canyon, located south of Littleton near Roxborough Park, is a popular hiking trail that follows a gentle grade up the canyon. The road was originally the bed of the Colorado, South Park and Pacific Railroad, built in 1877 from Denver, through Waterton Canyon to Leadville. The tracks were removed during WWII for scrap metal.…

Pella Crossing Open Space encompasses a collection of former gravel-mine ponds to both the east and west of N 75th Street in Hygiene, Colorado. The portion of the open space west of N 75th Street also includes a short stretch of Saint Vrain Creek on its way to Longmont. The water features and riparian habitat…

Golden Ponds in Longmont, Colorado is an amazing place in the spring and the weather on Saturday April 9th was perfect for a bird walk. From the fishing pier at the pond closest to the parking lot, we were treated to great views of American White Pelican and Double-crested Cormorant (so-named for the 2 feather…