RMNP’s Christmas Bird Count to be held on Sunday, December 16th.

*If interested in participating please contact Scott Rashid at pygmyowl@frii.com.

Anyone interested in participating in the Christmas Bird Count this year is welcome.

The main objective of the Christmas Bird Count is to have fun! The second objective is to count every bird you see within the count circle. If you’re adventurous enough, you can begin counting at 12:01 am on the 16th of December and continue counting until 12:00 pm that same evening. However, I don't think you’ll be that adventurous.

Therefore, we will meet at 8:00 am at the Estes Park Visitors Center. There we will break up into teams of two or more, get a map of the area that you’ll be counting, and off you go.

You will count every bird you see (without counting the same bird twice), keeping track of every species and every individual bird seen. We will then meet at Noon (12:00 pm) at the Hondius Room in the Estes Park Library, to discuss what was seen and, which areas that may still need to be covered.

We will then meet at Poppies for a compilation dinner at 4:00 pm.

Bring warm cloths, including hat and gloves. Lots of water, and binoculars, spotting scope, field guide, pen or pencil and paper or cell phone (to document the birds you see. Also bring a lunch to be eaten at noon.

Don’t worry, we will try and put inexperienced birders (bird watchers) with a more experienced birder, so the experience will be fun and not scary.

What works really well on a count like this is to simply count the birds you see and into your phone using the voice memo app. then simply listen to it and write down the bird then.

Some of the birds we are hoping to see are below: