April 11-22, 2025 with Micah Riegner & Alex Sundvall
Colorado might just be one of the most majestic states in the lower 48. The soaring mountain peaks, vast rolling prairies, alpine lakes, and rocky canyons provide a spectacular backdrop to some of the best birding in the middle of the country. Colorado is famous among birders for the chicken runs in spring; mad dashes around the state to see as many displaying grouse as possible. This tour is positioned perfectly to capitalize on just that! This year, we swept the galliformes with wonderful views of all 12 species possible. But Colorado is so much more than just scenery and grouse! We saw all 3 species of Rosy-Finch from feet away, 10 species of Corvid; and so many sparrows, woodpeckers, ducks, raptors, and so on! Over the course of our 10 birding days together: we covered 2600 miles between 4 states and saw 170 species of birds! As a group our two favorite birds were the incredible male Dusky Grouse we had displaying right on the side of the road and the Lesser Prairie-Chickens, our first of many early morning lek experiences. This first lekking experience stood out so strongly in our minds that it also tied the stunning Colorado Scenery as our favorite experiences of the tour. This tour was truly one for the record books with such an amazing group and some remarkable birds seen! We really left nothing on the table and had marvelous views of nearly every single species we saw!
From Micah and I and everyone at Field Guides, we want to thank you for taking this Colorado (...and Kansas and Nebraska and Utah…) journey with us. It was a lot of very early mornings and a lot of van time (we spent more time traveling in the vans than sleeping in our hotel rooms!) and that can be really challenging for some folks, but you all dealt with it in stride! We hope to see you all again soon, either on another tour or somewhere down the birding trail! Below is a day to day breakdown of our tour days.
Day 1: This tour is well known for being a high octane trip with lots of traveling between sites and lots of different birds to see! We hit the ground running right away with a 6am departure for Reynolds Park. We had our sights set high for the possible birds here, and nearly everything delivered perfectly! We started off the tour with a bang, with the first bird of the tour being a super cooperative Northern Pygmy-Owl right in the campground parking lot! Importantly for those listers, this is a true Northern Pygmy-Owl, and the ones most people see in southern AZ will be Mountain Pygmy-Owls, should they ever split them! From there we hiked up a steep mountain trail hoping to get our eyes on a Dusky Grouse, but unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards today. We did however have marvelous looks at five(!!) different species of woodpeckers including an American Three-toed Woodpecker that nearly took our heads off. We also swept the possible nuthatches with Pygmy, White-breasted, and a heard only Red-breasted. Along with Wild Turkey, Steller’s Jays, Townsend’s Solitaires, and Mountain Chickadees, this was truly an incredible morning of birding! We then headed up and down some mountain highways to the town of Silverthorne and the community of Wildernest where we watched a feeder full of Cassin’s Finches, Evening Grosbeaks, Pine Siskins, and Brown-capped Rosy-Finches. After lunch, we made the long trek down to Pueblo with our only major birding stop being a quick jaunt down Hanover Rd where we saw Burrowing Owls, Mountain Plovers, Horned Larks, and a lone Snow Goose with some of its Canada friends. Some mammal highlights from today were Black-tailed Jackrabbit, Black-tailed Prairie Dogs, and Pronghorn!
Day 2: we had a nice and leisurely start to the day with a drive around one of the neighborhoods of Pueblo looking for Scaled Quail. We quickly got eyes on a small covey of these cute quail scurrying around some of the houses! We also had nice looks at Curve-billed Thrashers. From here we headed to Pueblo Lake State Park, where we spent most of the morning walking trails and scanning the water. Some of the highlights here were Bewick’s Wren, both US forms of Yellow-rumped Warbler, Great Horned Owl, Wood Ducks, Ospreys, Common and Red-breasted Mergansers, Northern Pintails, California and Franklin’s Gulls, and our first Black-necked Stilts. Then we took a short drive to Holbrook Reservoir, where we spotted some very distant Clark’s, Western, and Eared Grebes. Thankfully the Horned Grebes were a little more cooperative, with one only feet from the shoreline! After lunch we headed to another nearby lake, this time seeking out Snowy Plovers. Thankfully they came pretty easily with a small group right along the shoreline! We also had Baird’s Sandpipers and a bunch more Black-necked Stilts foraging on the alkali shore. From here it was the long journey to Kansas and Scott City, broken up by the numerous Swainson’s Hawks of all different colors, perched and flying along the roadside, the majority being light morphs with a couple intermediate and good dark morph birds as well. There were also Northern Harriers, Ring-necked Pheasants, Loggerhead Shrikes, Vesper Sparrows, and hundreds of Horned Larks and Western Meadowlarks lining the roadsides as we headed east.
Day 3: Our earliest morning of the trip, but boy was it a special one! Today was our first lek experience of the trip, and for some folks their first lek experience ever. Lesser Prairie-Chickens are an endangered species with a population of around 30,000 remaining in the wild. We are fortunate enough with this tour to be able to witness these incredible birds on a Nature Conservancy Property, as their remaining home range has been drastically reduced by farming. Unlike Greater Prairie-Chickens, Lessers require fairly pristine tracts of habitat, so preservation is of high importance! Once we drove through the property and climbed into the blinds, we waited in silence for the sun to rise and activity at the lek to begin. Even before the sun rose, we could hear the Lesser Prairie-Chickens warming up and starting to gobble. This lek also had one Greater Prairie-Chicken booming and a hybrid between the two giving some awkward whistles in the corner and mostly sticking to himself. As it got lighter and lighter out, the activity peaked with displaying and fighting birds everywhere, even on top of the blinds! In the middle of the action, a Long-billed Curlew flew in and briefly stole the show from the displaying chickens. Once activity died down enough, we were able to leave the lek and head to breakfast at the local IHOP. From there, we headed northward where we stopped at a couple water treatment plants, with some better looks at Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and Baird’s Sandpiper, with a bonus group of Purple Martins(!) and filled in some birds for Nebraska at the Haigler WTP. After a nice and rare for this tour afternoon break, we headed to Bob Bledsoe’s office to talk with Bob about his property we’d be visiting in the morning. Our final stop of the day was at Stalker Lake where we had our best views yet of Western and Eared Grebes, Song Sparrow, and White-faced Ibis. Tomorrow would be another early day enjoying the larger cousins of the Lesser Prairie-Chickens!
Day 4: With dawn just starting to creep over the horizon, we drove onto the Greater Prairie-Chicken lek on the Bledsoe Ranch. They’ve recently put out a new blind to use, which, while a little chilly, really worked great! The rest of us hung out in the vans and enjoyed the show from there. At least 18 birds were on this lek, 15 of which were actively displaying males. While not as acrobatic as their smaller cousins we saw yesterday, they still put on an incredible show, and they were quite a bit closer than the Lessers, too! There were also a couple Burrowing Owls around on the lek and a crowing Ring-necked Pheasant in the distance. On our way out, we spotted a Great Horned Owl in a windbreak with a big flock of White-crowned Sparrows. After breakfast, we headed northwestward, first to our picnic stop in Fort Morgan. This Riverside Park had a few Cackling Geese and a couple Orange-shafted (Yellow x Red-shafted) Flickers to keep us entertained while eating lunch. Next we continued heading northwest to the Pawnee National Grasslands, where our main targets were the two species of possible Longspurs. After looking at over 100 Horned Larks, we finally spotted a group of Thick-billed Longspurs. We got out and they were incredibly obliging, allowing for incredible scope views. Just as we thought we had enough, a stunning Chestnut-collared Longspur flew in! We enjoyed these beautiful birds a little while longer, then headed westward to Denver where we spent the night yet again.
Day 5: Today was mostly a travel day to get from Golden all the way out to Montrose, but that didn’t stop us from finding some great birds! We started off the day again in Wildernest hoping for some Rosy-Finches. After about an hour of driving around, we finally got on a mixed flock of all 3 Rosy-Finches, with all of them showing off nicely! It’s especially wonderful to see Brown-capped and Black Rosy-Finches in high breeding plumage. We also had more good looks at Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Clark’s Nutcracker, and Evening Grosbeaks. From there we headed back up to Loveland pass where we decided to divide and conquer trying to track down a Ptarmigan. Thankfully, Micah spotted one almost immediately and we were able to convene at the summit and watch this sparking white bird as it walked around foraging above the tree line. After lunch, we made our way to Buena Vista where we saw the prettiest woodpecker in North America: the Lewis’s Woodpecker. We then continued our journey to Montrose, dodging some weather and seeing more good birds on the drive, including Golden Eagles, Swainson’s Hawks, Mountain Bluebirds, and finally, our first Cinnamon Teals.
Day 6: One of our earliest days of the tour, we left dark and early at 4:45am heading to the Gunnison Sage-Grouse area. Once we got to the Gunnison area, we quickly found the birds and enjoyed a marvelous show! Continuing along, we checked some woodlots for Williamson’s Sapsucker, and we eventually found a very cooperative pair. Always neat to see both sexes of Williamson’s Sapsucker, as when they were discovered they were considered to be separate species (the female was called Brown-headed Woodpecker!) We also had our first Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jays, Brewer’s Blackbirds, and Western Bluebirds, with some better views of Western and Clark’s Grebes. Mammal highlights from the morning were Gunnison Prairie Dog and Hopi Chipmunk! After lunch we made a brief stop to look for some Dippers, but the only thing new we added were some Northern Rough-winged Swallows. We had a nice afternoon break and an early dinner, and then we headed out towards Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. This stunning National Park is the Grand Canyon of Colorado and the scenery is simply incredible. While we didn’t get the main bird, we did see some incredible views before it got too dark.
Day 7: Today was mostly a repositioning day, but again not without plenty of birds! We were greeted in the morning with a fresh dusting of snow, which somehow made the scenery around Black Canyon even more dramatic. We continued our hunt for Dusky Grouse but remained unsuccessful. We did however, get marvelous views of Clark’s Nutcrackers, Slate-colored Fox Sparrows, and a Green-tailed Towhee! From there we made our way to Grand Junction, shouldering the vans briefly on the side of the highway for a flyby Prairie Falcon. After lunch we headed into the Colorado National Monument, which again provided an incredibly scenic backdrop for some incredible birds and mammals! Right at the park entrance there were Black-throated and Brewer’s Sparrows with a big flock of Mountain Bluebirds. As we headed farther into the park there was a lone Pinyon Jay right on the side of the road at the top of a tree! Around the visitor center we ran into another group of Pinyon Jays and heard Canyon, Rock, and Bewick’s Wrens, along with our first Juniper Titmouse! Later down the road we ran into a group of Bushtits and an early migrating Black-throated Gray Warbler.
Day 8: We started today heading out towards the Utah border to go birding around the sage flats looking for a handful of sagebrush species, including the well named Sagebrush Sparrow and Sage Thrasher. As soon as we got to the flats and watched the sunrise, a handful of Sagebrush Sparrows started singing their gurgling song. A quick walk out towards them provided incredible scope views of multiple individuals! There were also a few Sage Thrashers and Brewer’s Sparrows around. On our way back to the hotel we had some great looks at Golden Eagle, Loggerhead Shrike, and another Long-billed Curlew. After breakfast, we departed Grand Junction and headed towards our hotel in Craig. Our first stop was some feeders in town that had Gambel’s Quail and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds coming to them. Next, we traversed Cameo and Coal Canyon where there is a population of Chukar making themselves at home in the dry rocky canyons. Just past the shooting range we lucked into a Chukar very close to the road, possibly coming from a puddle leftover from recent rains. Our next birding stop was a bit farther down the road at a pond just outside the town of Meeker. Here we had some lovely Mountain Bluebirds, a couple of Rock Wrens, some migrating White-throated Swifts and Sandhill Cranes, all while being watched over by a Great Horned Owl up on the nearby cliff face. After getting into Craig, we grabbed a quick dinner from a local supermarket and headed up to Hayden for a picnic dinner with the hope of finding a Dusky Grouse. No sooner than we stopped the vans did a Dusky Grouse flush off the side of the road! During our scramble out of the vans we lost track of it up the hillside, but we thankfully found another stunning male displaying right on the side of the road. We watched this male display for 20 minutes as the sun set over the mountains. On our way back to the hotel for the evening, we got a teaser of tomorrow's grouse with a Sharp-tailed Grouse sitting at the top of a tree on the side of the road.
Day 9: Our second to last day and second to last lek started dark and early with a trip to a private Sharp-tailed Grouse lek. When we got to the lek, the birds were already displaying in the darkness, and couldn’t have cared less about our arrival. As we waited for the sun to rise and light to improve to see the birds, they got flushed multiple times by a hungry Northern Harrier, but that didn’t seem to sway the birds at all as they returned almost immediately after the Harrier passed us by. As the light got better and better, we were able to witness the incredible high-octane displays of these funky grouse: with their piston feet stomping, their wings outstretched, and their tails shaking almost like a rattlesnake. On our way out of the lek, we even got some great views of some Greater Sage-Grouse, our lekking birds for tomorrow! As we made our way towards the mountains again, we stopped in Steamboat Springs for an early lunch and some incredible views of a pair of American Dippers that were nesting under a bridge in town by some sulphur springs. After lunch, we stopped by the nearby Lake Catamount where we finally got some eyes on some distant Barrow’s Goldeneyes amongst the rafts of diving ducks. As we headed up and over Rabbit Ears Pass, we made a quick stop along the side of the road for a lovely Canada Jay that posed for us in the freshly fallen snow. These Rocky Mountain birds are paler headed than the northern birds most people are familiar with. Before dinner we headed to the reservoir in Walden where we had great close views of American Avocets and Marbled Godwits. After dinner we went high up into the mountains for some late night owling, where we heard a distant but clear Boreal Owl hooting.
Day 10: Our final day of the tour started with an absolutely magical morning at the Greater Sage-Grouse lek near Coalmont. Watching the incredible and odd displays of these birds in real life really felt like we were watching a nature documentary in real time. For me, this was always something that just existed on TV and didn’t actually exist in real life. Having a front row seat to it is something none of us will ever forget. Often the birds get scared away by Eagles or Harriers while they’re displaying, but not today. As we watched the sunrise, the birds just kept displaying, and eventually we had to leave in order to get to breakfast. What a fantastic experience! Outside our breakfast place, we scoped some nearby cliffs putting a Peregrine Falcon in the scope for everyone while we waited for our food. After breakfast, we slowly made our way back toward Denver, first driving over Ute Pass where we got great looks at Pine Grosbeaks coming to bathe and drink, and also saw a few more Williamson’s Sapsuckers, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and Townsend’s Solitaires. As we got into Denver, we realized we really hadn’t left any birds on the table at all! We made a quick stop in at a state park for a last ditch effort at a migrating Ferruginous Hawk (to no avail) and made another stop at the newly minted Keith’s Slough for a pair of Virginia Rails, and that was that!
Mammal List:
Mountain Cottontail - Sylvilagus nuttalli
Desert Cottontail - Sylvilagus audubonii
White-tailed Jackrabbit - Lepus townsendi
Black-tailed Jackrabbit - Lepus californicus
Least Chipmunk - Neotamias minimus
Hopi Chipmunk - Neotamias rufus
Yellow-bellied Marmot - Marmota flaviventris
White-tailed Antelope Squirrel - Urocitellus elegans
Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel - Ictidomys tridecemlineatus
Rock Squirrel - Otospermophilus variegatus
Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel - Callospermophilus lateralis
Black-tailed Prairie Dog - Cynomys ludovicianus
White-tailed Prairie Dog - Cynomys leucurus
Gunnison Priaire Dog - Cynomys gunnisoni
Eastern Fox Squirrel - Sciurus niger
American Red Squirrel - Tamiasciurus hudsonicus
Coyote - Canis latrans
Elk - Cervus canadensis
Mule Deer - Odocoileus hemionus
Pronghorn - Antilocapra americana
Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep - Ovis canadensis canadensis
Desert Bighorn Sheep - Ovis canadensis nelsoni
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/423680
You can see my iNaturalist report of non-avian taxa at this link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/field-guides-colorado-grouse-tour-2025?tab=observations
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/cgr25TRIPLIST.pdf
- Micah and Alex