ACES Birding and Conversation Series: Birding the Frying Pan Valley with Ted Floyd 07/25/25

This Birding and Conversation field trip featured guest Ted Floyd, author of the new National Geographic field guides and editor of Birding magazine (American Birding Association). Ted provided insights on birding, bird life histories, his new guide books, and much more during this trip that started at Basalt River Park. After birding our way from Lions Park to Basalt River Park, we made several stops at key pullouts for various habitats along Frying Pan Road, ending at CapK Ranch where we settled into chairs in the shade beneath aspen trees on the shore of a pond on the ranch for lunch and discussion time, and of course, continued birding. Special highlights included seeing six species of swallows, a brilliant western tanager, a dipper nest, a cliff swallow nest being used by a violet-green swallow, four species of hummingbirds, and two bald eagles. We enjoyed hearing about the history of CapK Ranch from owner Lynn Nichols who joined us for the discussion portion of the trip. Ted also signed copies of his National Geographic West book, which were available for purchase from ACES. With Ted’s vast knowledge of everything birds and birding gleaned from authoring numerous books and his decades as Birding magazine editor, we were enthralled listening as he answered our questions and went into fun, entertaining tangents and digressions. Join us for our next Birding and Conversation events: an evening slide lecture on bird migration and a field trip focused on bird song and behavior with prominent Colorado birder Bill Schmoker, on August 13th and 14th respectively.