ABA's Camp Colorado was definitely one of the best birding experiences I have ever had. In total we saw 125 species and I made several new friends and many memories along the way. Below is a highlights video of our experience, so I am going to make the writing in this post brief. On July 16, I flew out to Denver and was picked up camp director Jennie Duberstein at the gate, where I met the rest of the campers. Soon after, we piled into the van and headed to The YMCA Of The Rockies in Estes Park, where we would stay for the next week. Our daily schedule looked a lot like this:
We visited a new habitat each of the 5 days in search of new birds. Here are the places we went and what habitats they offered:
- Wake up before sunrise for a full morning of birding usually from around 6 AM to mid-afternoon
- Breakfast in the field
- Arrive back at the Y for lunch and/or free time, where we did things like more birding, play outside, or socializing
- Workshop (learning about things to make us better birders) or bird banding
- Dinner
- Owling and/or evening program given by a camp counselor
We visited a new habitat each of the 5 days in search of new birds. Here are the places we went and what habitats they offered:
- Day 1. Wild Basin (moutain birding in Rocky Mountain National Park)
- Day 2. Pawnee National Grassland and Fossil Creek Reservoir
- Day 3. Upper Beaver Meadows and Hidden Valley (more mountain birding)
- Day 4. Medicine Bow Curve (looking for birds of the tundra at 12,000 ft)
- Day 5. Rabbit Mountain (foothills birding)