Great Backyard Bird Count 2024

This year my girlfriend and I participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. We were already in Estes Park on Saturday and Sunday, snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park. We saw two mountain chickadees while we were up there.

On Monday, February 19th, the last day of the event, we went to Castlewood Canyon State Park, which is one of the best places near where I live to see a wide variety of birds. We started at the north end of the park around four o'clock and made our way towards the canyon rim, but turned back due to lots of mud and the fact that we weren't seeing a lot of birds towards that area.

However, in the roughly two hours we spent looking for birds we ended up tallying American robins, woodpeckers (either Hairy or Downy, I'm not sure which), dark-eyed juncos, a black-capped chickadee, spotted towhees, a Townsends's solitaire, and a red-tailed hawk.

Other birds that we did not see but which I have seen before in the park included turkeys, turkey vultures, ravens, and Stellar's jays.

We did end up seeing a bunch of mule deer at the edge of the park on our way home, which although are obviously not birds are still great to see, especially in the soft February evening light.

Posted on February 21, 2024 02:35 AM by