Birding Resources

Take your birding to the next level with ACES and beyond!

NEW birders: Check out this Beginner’s Guide to Birdwatching suggested to us by a young novice birder Nicole from Oregon who found our resource page helpful – thanks Nicole!

Where, How, What:

•  Where to go birding in Colorado? Try Colorado County Birding or Colorado Birder
•  Click here to learn how to identify birds by their sounds. It does take practice!
•  Click here for a digital library of 602 North American bird songs.
•  Many online bird guides and resources can be used on your mobile devices. Use them!
•  Click here to explore the digital Audubon Bird’s and Climate Change Report.

Birding Citizen Science projects you can get involved with:

•  Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of habitat distribution. This citizen science project is usually scheduled in February of each year. Click here for this year’s information.
•  Christmas Bird Count is a worldwide bird counting annual event, usually organized by the local Audubon chapters. ACES and Roaring Fork Audubon partner to make this happen in the Aspen area. Stay tuned about the specific date each December.
•  Global Big Day is a worldwide bird count and conservation fundraiser held in early May and organized by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Birders around the world are encouraged to enter their sightings on ebird to gather bird observations around the world to capture a snapshot on a single day, and raise awareness for international conservation efforts. This year, participants are directed to put safety first and follow local COVID-19 guidelines and restrictions. Since participants will be birding from home or very close by, the event’s focus will be on the number of checklists submitted (rather than the number of species reported, as in past years). Results help us understand global bird populations, inform conservation efforts, and create educational products. Last year’s Global Big Day collected 92,284 checklists from 35,209 participants in 174 countries. This year, Cornell hopes to set a new checklist record of 100,000 or more!
•  eBird, an online resource to track your bird sightings and organize and keep your bird lists.
•  Rosy Finch Feeder Count Project, – They are now recruiting volunteers from across the Western U.S. for our winter Rosy-finch Bird Feeder survey project. Volunteers for this project spend 20-minutes each month from December through April doing a count of Rosy-finches and other birds at their home bird feeder, or a publicly accessible feeder near them. To participate, you just need to be located within the winter range of the three North American Rosy-finch species: the Gray-crowned, Black, and Brown-capped Rosy-finch. Even if you haven’t seen rosy-finches at your feeder before, if you’re in the range, they would love your participation! Learn more about the project at https://sagelandcollaborative.org/rosy-finch

 

Bird-Friendly Coffee – Watch the Movie

Sheltering at home has many of us watching movies. Consider this short documentary titled Shade-Grown Coffee. (Your fee to watch, $6.99, supports this educational effort.) As Scott Weidensaul says, when it comes to coffee, the options are very clear; one’s choice either helps birds or harms them. Shade-grown coffee is grown organically in the understory of native forests. Known for their high biodiversity, these native forests are critical habitat for both resident birds and migratory birds such as Swainson’s thrushes and Wilson’s warblers. Meet the growers in this documentary, people who care about birds and other animals just like you do.

Here’s more from Audubon Magazine about bird-friendly coffee… and other labels, such as Rainforest Alliance Certified, shade-grown, and organic.

How can you help if you’re not a coffee drinker? 
With 150 million coffee drinkers in the U.S, chances are good that you know one, and you can share this information. Better yet, give bird-friendly coffee as a gift, and help the recipient get to know this wonderful coffee!

Where to find bird-friendly coffee?
Birds and Beans sells bird-friendly coffee online, and they are currently shipping.  More sources are found here.  Woo hoo!

Build Your Own Birdhouse or Bird feeder

If you are excited to bird from the comfort of your own home – think about building a birdhouse to place outside a window or your backdoor! It is also a great family-friendly activity to do. This article, written by Hermann Samano, includes tips for beginning birders, as well as 29 blueprints for birdhouses that you can download! Read “Build Your Own Birdhouse for Your Backdoor Birding Hobby” to learn more.

Interested in turning your plastic bottles into bird feeders? Read “Make Your Own Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder.”

Hummingbirds

Did you know Hummingbirds are the smallest migratory bird? Learn more about Hummingbirds in this article, “Fun Family Activity–Attracting Hummingbirds,” from porch.com.