Resources for Birders
Where should I go birding today? Let us give you some good ideas. Provided are links to the Birding Hotspot pages for the counties along the northern Front Range. Trips to any of these places should not be much more than hour and many are much closer. Also enjoy some videos from DFO members Megan Miller and Jordan Spalding as they go birding around the area.
Birds Recorded on Field Trips
Every bird and species recorded on any of DFO's numerous field trips is entered into an eBird list for that outing. These reports allow users to slice and dice the data in various ways to examine what was seen. Please note that because of the volume of data, users of smaller or hand-held electronic devices may need to view some of these reports on larger screens.
Fall/Spring Counts
For many years, during spring and fall migration, Denver area birders inventoried bird species seen locally. In the same way that the Christmas Bird Count evaluates the status of winter residents, Spring and Fall Counts provide a more accurate picture of the annual avian cycle of life for birds that migrate through Colorado and the Front Range. These counts were discontinued after the sprng of 2022 but there is still much to be gleaned from the data. Click on a report to see a summary of the results.
Christmas Bird Counts
The Christmas Bird Count, the first community science project sponsored by the National Audubon Society, was first conducted in 1900. The counts today are held annually between December 14 and January 5 and are the highlight of the birding year for many birders. You can read here the summaries and tallies for the past several years. The Denver CBC is managed through our field trips program.
Big Month/Big Year
DFO periodically stages Big Year and Big Month group birding events to provide extra enjoyment and incentive to the club's many field trips. These birding challenges engage current members and help attract new members to DFO. Participants aim collectively to set new birding records, whether for totals of species seen on DFO trips or for new or rarely seen species on Colorado's official list of more than 500 species recorded in the state.