Dear Fellow Colorado Birders,
Let me take you on the journey of the defending champions' battle to keep our title with Grand County:
It all started the day after 2024's challenge when our team captain and bird route engineer, Michael Dougherty, started pouring over topographic maps, ebird reports, historical ABA documents, and long meditation sessions in trying to figure out how we could improve our 93 species from the 2024 challenge. He knew the competition in 2025 would be fierce. To that end, he learned how to forgo sleep this past year in order to pour his soul into the route we would take. Despite the effort, he kept running into opportunity costs that he just couldn't live with (for example, "do we spend 8 more minutes at Williams fork reservoir or only 6?" "What degree of hill slope will produce more dawn birds Radium?" "Do we need battle well-to-do tourists at RMNP as they spook birds?") He became mad with dedication and I am happy to report that all his hard work paid off and our route was set a week ago, allowing the rest of the team to study. Each team member then needed to pass a final exam that demonstrated their mastery of what birds would be likely spotted in each micro environment.
It all started the day after 2024's challenge when our team captain and bird route engineer, Michael Dougherty, started pouring over topographic maps, ebird reports, historical ABA documents, and long meditation sessions in trying to figure out how we could improve our 93 species from the 2024 challenge. He knew the competition in 2025 would be fierce. To that end, he learned how to forgo sleep this past year in order to pour his soul into the route we would take. Despite the effort, he kept running into opportunity costs that he just couldn't live with (for example, "do we spend 8 more minutes at Williams fork reservoir or only 6?" "What degree of hill slope will produce more dawn birds Radium?" "Do we need battle well-to-do tourists at RMNP as they spook birds?") He became mad with dedication and I am happy to report that all his hard work paid off and our route was set a week ago, allowing the rest of the team to study. Each team member then needed to pass a final exam that demonstrated their mastery of what birds would be likely spotted in each micro environment.
To facilitate the efficiency of the day, all team members (Micahel Dougherty, Nate Bond, Jake Short, Peter Stolz, and myself) had been experimenting with long duration fasting. This proved insanely valuable as we had to forgo lunch until 4:00 yesterday. Additionally, we had been training with the ancient art of "bathroom syncing," where all group members use the restroom at the same time (not together, mind you)- this would allow precious minutes to be saved in the art of finding new species. Additionally, all team members have been training with scope set up rapidness, repping binocular lifts daily, and deep brush movement detection techniques in order to find and locate the most difficult and skulky song birds. Lastly, our list maker, Jake Shorty, took on extra thumb exercises and worked with list expert, Ken Kaufman, to shave seconds off reporting time, training much like a F1 pit worker. Jake also served as our primary photo documenter and engineer with Nate Bond our second in command. The work these two can do with lenses has been heralded statewide.
All our training and prep paid off! Our Trip Report (https://ebird.org/tripreport/408851) logs 105 species (42 species over par) observed between 6:18 am near Radium and too-dark-to-see at Snow Mountain Ranch (no owls were found).
Some extraordinary highlights:
-8 semipalmated plovers! Holy cow!
-A Clark's Grebe- a majestic sight at Hinman
-We almost closed out seeable falcons, only missing a merlin. A prairie falcon perched on a telephone poll before zooming away brought tears of joy to the author. 2 ridge riding, soaring peregrines, conjured feels of power too deep for words.
-A Townsend's Warbler showed itself to 3 of the 5 of use before flying down slope above Hot Sulphur Springs. The team made silent eye contact with each other, filled with determination, we would not let 2 of us miss this magnificent warbler. Spending an additional 12 minutes of precious time we birded that slope like our lives depended on it before the warbler perched himself for all to behold.
-A Swainson's Hawk (late season for Grand) had members of the group sprinting to find a clear view of this soaring bird as it soared one final loop before heading south on its migration.
-2 yellow-headed black birds playing in a mudflat.
-Our 100th bird, a female western tanager, was a gift from the bird gods: we got out of vehicles at Granby Ranch Wetlands and this bird flew directly into the only measly tree around then proceeded to think it was a photoshoot.
-With almost no light left to see, a Swainson's Thrush presented himself through a 'window' in a dense tree so perfect it was hard not to marvel, becoming our final and 105th bird.
Fellow birders, there were no miracles to report. No first state records, no county records, no extreme rarities of any kind. Just blood, sweat, tears, and hard work produced a day filled with the joy of extreme birding.
Truly, we honor the opportunity to participate in this awesome and fun competition! Thank you to COBirds for all the hard work of making the COBC happen and fundraising for worthy causes!
We all look forward to hearing the results!
Cheers, Eric Dinkel, Denver County on behalf of Team COBC, 100% Confirmed by Merlin, from Grand County
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