Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory with funding and logisitical support from the Colorado Division of Wildlife, U.S. Bureau of Land Managment, and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, is conducting a statewide, long-term bird-monitoring project known as Monitoring Colorado's Birds . The project has two main components: 1) a program of 30 point transects in each of Colorado's main habitats and 2) a program of censussing directly those species (termed "special species") whose ranges, behaviors, and/or ecologies cause them to be under-represented on the transects. The task list for the whole program is over 1620 items long!

Despite more than the usual number of field problems, we had a fairly successful field season in 2000. We completed >300 point transects in 14 habitats spread across the state. We also spent a lot of time looking into a large number of nooks and crannies in Colorado obtaining a better idea of what birds are found where. RMBO field staff and volunteers visited >100 Great Blue Heron colonies (from Two Buttes SWA to Browns Park NWR), found the single largest breeding population of Bell's Vireos in the state, and, as we write this, are attempting to visit >120 waterfalls in Colorado to look for the presence of nesting Black Swifts. We have also scanned some 200 or more lakes, ponds, and reservoirs looking for Eared, Western, and Clark's grebes and other species that call Colorado's water bodies home for the summer. As we get further into the data-handling and analysis stages, look for further updates on Monitoring Colorado's Birds .

Download Monitoring Plans

• Colorado Monitoring Plan
• Special Monitoring Projects Plan