Backyard Birding in Colorado

On our first house hunting trip we were searching for new, exotic, Colorado birds. However, our searching only resulted in finding the common Crow and many Robins. Finally, we spotted a new bird. It was a large black and white bird with an extremely long tail. We later learned that it was a Black-Billed Magpie.

Now that we are living in Colorado we realize the Magpie is as common as the common Crow. We have a flock of these vocal birds that visit us daily. We love to see them hopping around with their tails in the air. They especially love to sit on our horses. The horses often find themselves taking these large birds for a ride. At first this was not a popular activity with the horses but they now seem to appreciate each others services.

Our biggest birding surprise was the Hummingbirds. They are everywhere. We are amazed that no one mentioned them to us. We have more Hummingbirds than butterflies and you can hear them buzzing around. They will often fly high up into the sky and then dive down in a pattern that they often repeat. There are two beliefs about this aerial display. Some believe it to be courtship related and others think it is an act of aggression. Whatever the purpose, it is amazing to watch. There are many species of Hummingbirds in our area but we have only positively identified the Broad-Tailed Hummingbird. It is hard to tell them apart because some of the species have similar markings. We need to get busy on our identification. We are not using Hummingbird feeders to attract these little beauties. However, we have hanging baskets full of flowers and since we boarder a National Forest there are wildflowers everywhere you look. Check out our story below and find out why we are not using any type of bird feeder.

We love to feed the birds. However, we have decided this is no longer a family activity for us. The reason being the Black Bear. The bears in our area love bird feeders. When we were looking for our house one of the real-estate agents had a picture of an enormous Black Bear, on his deck, eating the seed from his feeders. After seeing that we made the no feeding the birds rule.

We finally move to our new farm and realize that there are so many humming birds. Well, we begin to change our mind. Our neighbors sometimes have fifteen humming birds at one feeder. We started asking if they have problems with bears coming to their feeders and everyone has a bear at their bird feeder story. One woman had a 7 foot bear climb to her second story deck and eat and drink from her bird feeders. Okay, we are not that brave yet. We still hope to put out a feeder or two during the Great Backyard Bird Count in February. They should be hibernating at that time.