The Colorado Birding Challenge

Five years ago Sue Riffe nominated me for a position on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Field Ornithologists (CFO), a volunteer-run organization dedicated to the advancement of birds and birding in Colorado. A year later, CFO faced a leadership crisis. President David Gillilan was burnt out after his first two-year term of volunteering as President. His Vice-president, Christian Nunes had just become a father and announced his retirement from the board after 6 years of service. The new president was required to be someone with board experience or a past president. It seemed as though no one wanted this thankless job. At first I did not want it either. The last thing I needed was an additional source of stress. My full time job at CDC was stressful enough. But then I thought about the impact I could have as president so I changed my mind. The board was thrilled at my decision. Crisis averted. But they were also nervous about my running for President. Never in CFO’s 50-year history had someone been nominated for president with as much of a lack of institutional involvement as me. 

After the rubber stamp vote at the CFO annual meeting, held in May 2019 at the Annual Convention in Montrose, I assumed my new role as volunteer president. My vision for the organization was to generate more members through offering more activities than our annual conventions. I also wanted to grow the organization to allow for a broader mission than currently offered by the CFO convention which offered 4 days of field trips, a banquet speaker, a silent auction to raise money for bird research, a workshop or two, and plenty of field trips.

Besides the convention, CFO did very little. It published a quarterly journal called Colorado Birds and curated reports of rare birds through its Bird Records Committee. However, all three of these areas needed substantial improvements. I felt it was also important to add something to CFO’s current portfolio of activities. 

Despite its mission statement, CFO did not have an active conservation program among its activities. So I recruited a conservation director. Walter Wehtje was a good friend and he had recently become the Executive Director of the Ricketts Foundation for Conservation. Unfortunately for CFO, Walter moved to Wyoming for his new job leaving a void in the board and in our conservation program. Eventually I would ask Chuck Hundertmark, a former president of Denver Field Ornithologists, to take over the role. Under his leadership, we now have a solid Conservation Program. The current Conservation committee chair is Philip McNichols. 

To fund Conservation activities, CFO also created an annual fundraiser called the Colorado Birding Challenge. We challenged birders to collect donations and pledges for every species observed on a date in May within a selected county. The challenge required all observations to be entered into eBird. We aimed to have a team competing in all 64 Colorado counties. Because some counties are more birdy and habitat-diverse than others, we established county par values, based on data already collected in eBird and on the population size of counties. In this way, we evened the playing field for those wanting to compete in a small county.

In 2021, for my first Colorado Birding Challenge event, we raised 

40,000 for Conservation with most of the funds benefiting the Bird Conservancy of the  Rockies. They used the funds to remediate grassland in northern Mexico where Colorado Grasslands birds winter. I participated on May 9, 2021, in the green category by riding my bicycle about 50 miles in Larimer County from the top of Rist Canyon to Arapahoe Bend Natural Area along the Cache La Poudre River. My team was the Masked Trogons and my teammate was Greg Osland who was also on the CFO Board of Directors. We tallied 107 species to win the green category, in which motorized vehicles were prohibited. 

In 2022, I followed the same route with a team of four bikers in the green category. My team was the White-bearded Helmetcrests. We tallied 119 species on May 7, scoring second place. The overall effort raised about $45K for Gunnison Sage-grouse conservation. My teammates were Jay Breidt, Doug Swartz and John Shenot. 

In 2023, we set a goal of raising $50K for Pinyon Jay conservation. The White-bearded Helmetcrests rode again (same route). On May 20, I was joined by Jay Breidt and David  Wade. We scored 131 species for a second place finish in the green category. 26 teams participated and raised about $20,000. 

It was a fun day of birding although Dave and I only slept three hrs beforehand having arrived in Fort Collins after midnight from our West Texas Road Trip. In fact, I overslept and ran out the door at 4 AM without a belt and wearing my crocs. We managed. The best birds of the day were a Dusky Grouse (USA and Territories year bird 662), MacGillivray’s Warblers (663) and a Northern Goshawk at Rist Canyon hill, Red-eyed vireo at Watson Lake, Black Phoebe and Blackpoll Warbler at Bingham Hill Cemetery. At City Park, thanks to a tip from EJ Raynor, we had a migratory flock that included Hooded Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Swainson’s Thrush, Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Plumbeous Vireo. Stilt Sandpiper was at Nix Natural Area. American Bittern was at Running Deer Natural Area.  

My next big adventure (Alaska) would begin May 25, 2023.  I had almost a week to get ready for the trip and catch up on my Larimer County year list.  Needless to say I had fallen way behind. During the period of waiting I would remain in first place in the ABA Area year list competition, 1 bird species ahead of the McQuades.