"Last call" to adopt a Colorado Breeding Bird Survey route

[David Suddjian]

Hi CoBirders,

I posted here a couple of times earlier this spring about adopting a survey route for the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). Efforts to recruit birders for the "vacant" Colorado BBS routes have been very successful: there are now only five Colorado BBS routes without an assigned observer! Thanks to the many new and veteran BBS volunteer observersThis is a "last call" for this season to see if anyone else is interested in adopting one of the five available routes, which are all located on the eastern prairie:

Route #	Route Name	County
17020	Boyero	Lincoln
17044	Bethune	Kit Carson
17307	Julesburg	Sedgwick, Logan
17314	Burlington	Kit Carson, Yuma
17321	Sheridan Lake	Kiowa, Prowers

Information on each can be found here Vacant BBS Routes. Packets with survey materials are being mailed to observers before the end of this month. Now is the time if anyone else is interested in making the commitment. Please contact me directly if you want to adopt a route or have questions.

Here is some more info:

The North American Breeding Bird Survey is our longest running continent-wide survey of breeding birds. Each year during the height of the avian breeding season (late May to early July), skilled birders collect bird population data along roadside BBS survey routes. Each survey route is 24.5 miles long with 50 stops situated 0.5-mile apart. At each stop, a 3-minute point count is conducted, and every bird seen or heard within a 0.25-mile radius is recorded. Routes are surveyed once each season, following the same roads and making the same stops each year.

Observers should be skilled in identifying the birds of the region by sight and sound (sorry, you can't use Merlin sound ID to find and ID the birds for you). The BBS is looking for volunteers to make at least a three-year commitment to surveying a route. Visit here for more information. 

Please contact me with any questions.

David Suddjian

Littleton CO

Colorado BBS state coordinator