"Neither wind, rain, sleet nor snow" became the motto of avid birdwatchers who participated in the 11th annual Ute Mountain-Mesa Verde Birding Festival.
Despite the wet spring, tour participants gathered early each morning at the Cortez Cultural Center and boarded vans donated by several area entities. A dozen volunteer drivers chauffeured participants throughout five counties and habitat areas including to Navajo Lake, Lost Canyon, Mesa Verde, McPhee Reservoir, Ute Mountain Tribal Park, McElmo Canyon, Bradfield Bridge, La Plata River, Upper Dolores River and Dolores River Canyon, Dove Creek, and Coalbed Creek in eastern Utah.
An overnight carpool expedition explored scenic and cultural birding landscapes around Moab, Utah. In all, 21 local and regional avian experts provided their services as tour guides to enhance birding opportunities during the five-day event.
Feathered friends
The 2015 birding festival's 23 tours garnered a total of 166 species, a half-dozen more than the 2014 tally.
A tour in the Yellow Jacket area revealed four summer tanagers, and Lucy warblers feeding their young in the nest, a rare sighting.
The Local Lakes tour chalked up two warbler species not observed during previous birding festivals - American redstart and Townsend's warbler. The first confirmed report of a Harris's sparrow in Dolores County came from the Bradfield Bridge tour, which also captured the honor of sighting 80 species.
The Weber Canyon tour observed a fox sparrow, not sighted since the 2005 festival. Dolores River Canyon's tour tallied the golden-crowned kinglet, and elusive brown creeper.
Three different night tours scouted for owls around Cortez and Mancos and netted great-horned, flammulated, Northern faw-whet and Western screech owls.
While the Old Spanish Trail (West) tour did not see sharp-tailed or Gunnison's sage grouse, the birders logged sage thrasher, which had been listed only once before in 2008. However, the Old Spanish Trail (East) tour again successfully spotted acorn woodpecker, another rare Colorado species. Common poorwill, generally uncommon during the birding festival, showed up on Wednesday's opening day lists, while common nighthawks, never included on previous birding festival tallies, made an appearance for Friday's Mancos Owling tour.
Shorebird sightings were minimal again this year, but willet and whimbrel, generally uncommon, added to the 2015 tally.
Flock of birders
The 2015 UMMV Birding Festival attracted 125 birdwatchers from throughout Colorado, New Mexico, and neighboring states.
A young man from Alaska, who was visiting the area, walked into the Cultural Center upon hearing about the birding festival and signed onto four tours.
Fifty people attended John Rawinski's opening night presentation, "The Mysteries of Colorado Owls."
Thursday afternoon's presentations by Dr. Tony Apa (Department of Natural Resources) and Joseph Ortega (Fort Lewis College) provided festival participants with interesting data about habitats and survival ratios among Four Corners species. Saturday evening's banquet and Nathan Pieplow's keynote presentation attracted 101 people.
Popular pastime
"The festival was very successful in spite of the quirky weather," said Diane Cherbak, UMMV birding festival chair.
Free tours were full, she said, and the talks were very informative.
"We all learned something. During a talk on the amazing sounds of birds, we all learned that some bird pairs sing duets. Who knew?" Cherbak said.
Ideas already are stewing for next year's birding festival.
With the recent sighting of a California condor on Summit Ridge, discussions are to put it on the poser and re-establish an overnight condor tour to Vermillion Cliffs in Arizona.
The Ute Mountain-Mesa Verde Birding Festival originated in 2005 as a major regional event sponsored by the Cortez Cultural Center. The festival is the only community-based watchable wildlife event in the Four Corners region.
According to Colorado tourism statistics, bird watching ranks near the top of preferred outdoor attractions. The festival has brought birding enthusiasts from throughout Colorado, the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Of the seven annual birding events scheduled within western Colorado, only the UMMV Birding Festival incorporates a broad expanse of habitats including alpine and ponderosa forests, the Great Sage Plain, lakes and riparian corridors, open fields and orchards, canyonlands, and desert scrub. The species tallies from this year's event represent over one-third of the total avian species documented within Colorado.
For additional information about the 2015 UMMV Birding Festival visit www.utemountainmesaverdebirdingfestival.com.
