[cobirds] bird information

Hi all,

 

This is Bill Maynard. We met at the Colorado Springs Acorn Woodpecker spot.  Before I forget, a friend just called and said he has a flock of 200 Bohemian Waxwings along Highway 115 near the turn for Martindale Campground.  The flock should be around the junipers feeding on the berries in the location or anywhere there might be lots of juniper berries.

 

Colorado Field Ornithologists (CFO) runs a listserve with daily posts about birds in Colorado.  You can join it at cobirds@googlegroups.com It is a good organization with an annual meeting with field trips each year in different areas of Colorado. This year, May, it will be in Cortez.  CFO membership includes a journal, Colorado Birds, published four times a year. You can request a free copy.  CFO also has a group on Facebook, Colorado Field Ornithologists where you can upload photos, ask questions, discuss I.D. problems and currently there are beginners through expert on it (you don’t have to be a member of CFO).  That is where I upload photos on a regular basis.  It also has the link to register for their 2013 Convention. 

 

Also, the American Birding Association, www.aba.org has a website that includes a young birder blog which would be good to check out.  Their national headquarters is in Colorado Springs on Colorado Avenue. If you don’t have binoculars, I could probably get you a used binocular from them. A very good birder, Mark Peterson, is from Florence (now living in Colorado Springs) and he goes to the Florence are frequently to bird (he has the highest bird list in Fremont County.  He would most likely be happy to invite you along when he is in that area. 

 

The Christmas Bird Counts are fun.  There is one for Pueblo Reservoir, the City of Pueblo, Penrose (which includes Canon etc.) There are lots of birders who go on the Pueblo Res CBC and the Penrose CBC, they often record the highest numbers of bird species for the state.  I do both, so does Mark Peterson (he organizes the Penrose CBC), and Brandon Percival (Pueblo West) who organizes the City of Pueblo CBC (Brandon has the highest bird list in Pueblo County which is also the highest county list in the state with 400 species).  There is also a Fountain CBC that is fun, and my nephew, Dan Maynard, organizes that one.   The CFO website has a county listing site where you can search by county or by species.  It also has a spot where you can submit your total by county, by region, by state. 

 

Also, Chico Basin Ranch has amazing birding in the spring and fall, it is a migrant trap in southern El Paso and northern Pueblo counties.  I write a bird blog for them whenever I visit,  www.chicobasinranch.com (Birding Journal) and we have found 333 species in only 10  years of birding there.  The bad news is that they charge $15 per person per visit or $125 per year but it is $10 per person with a group of 6 or more with a leader. 

 

Also, the Arkansas Valley Audubon has birding field trips throughout the year as does the Aiken Audubon group.  They have a website and you don’t have to be a member of Audubon to go on their field trips.  Both groups go to Chico Basin Ranch, sometimes as a combined group.

 

I can answer most of your birding questions, but I will be away tonight through Thursday early evening.  I was a biology teacher at a private girls’ school in Ohio in a past life and I have worked for the American Birding Association in two different capacities and now I am mostly retired but I look for dead birds on a wind farm in Limon two days a week.

 

Many birders are also bird photographers in case you didn’t notice.  Very nice meeting you all.

 

Best,

 

Bill Maynard

Colorado Springs

bmaynard99@gmail.com