CUriosity: What are Colorado's iconic birds—and how can you see them?
In CUriosity, experts across the CU 91Ҹ campus answer questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.
Scott Taylor, associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and director of the Mountain 91Ҹ Station at CU 91Ҹ, shares some local birds you may never have heard of.
Male greater sage grouse inflates its air sacs while trying to attract mates in spring. (Credit: Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management)
Ah, spring. Time to plant flowers and do a little cleaning.
It’s also time for the greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) to strut its stuff. These birds look a little like fancy chickens, and they live across much of the American West, including in the sagebrush grassland of western Colorado.
Every spring, males engage in a bizarre display to attract females. They flex their wings, suck in as much as a gallon of air, then inflate two sacs the size and color of lemons on their breasts—letting rip a series of whistles, coos and popping noises.
“It’s a combination of vocalizations and the sound their feathers make when they rub them against their bodies,” says Scott Taylor, associate professor in theDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Taylor is an ornithologist and director of theMountain 91Ҹ Station at CU 91Ҹ, a high-altitude research facility near the mountain town of Nederland. He’s also the host of the podcast “,” which debuted in December.
“Colorado is an amazing place to watch birds because of all the different habitats we have here, all the way from the high plains to the prairies and up into the alpine,” he says.
To celebrate spring, Taylor is sharing a few of the wildest, strangest and underappreciated birds in the state.
Bird watching
Turkey vulture perches on top of Macky Auditorium on the CU 91Ҹ campus (Casey Cass/CU 91Ҹ)
Brown-capped rosy finch ()
White-tailed ptarmigan in its winter plumage ()
Mountain chickadee (Anna Weyers Blades/USFWS)
He begins with what might be Colorado’s ultimate 14er climber, the brown-capped rosy finch (Leucosticte australis).
These small birds are brown with a blush of pink on their undersides. They live almost exclusively in the mountains of Colorado, only venturing into a small corner of New Mexico.
Rosy finches are also the highest nesting birds in North America. They lay their eggs at elevations of up to 14,000 feet above sea level and higher and have evolved for life at these extreme altitudes. They carry a special kind of hemoglobin molecule in their red blood cells. This hemoglobin is especially adept at picking up oxygen and delivering it to tissues. It’s a useful tool when you breathe the thin air on top of a mountain.
Next up is a master of disguise, the white-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura). Ptarmigans, another chicken-like bird, can usually be found running around the mountain tundra. To blend in with their surroundings, they turn brown in the summer and stark white in the winter.
“The chicks also have a pattern that looks like lichen, so it’s really good camouflage to protect themselves from predators,” Taylor says.
Experienced birders may overlook black-capped (Poecile atricapillus) and mountain (Poecile gambeli) chickadees, two species that are common visitors to bird feeders around much of the American West. But these birds can achieve feats of memory that are almost unparalleled in the animal world, Taylor says.
Every year, chickadees collect tens of thousands of seeds and store away each of them in a unique hiding place. They remember their hiding spots when winter arrives.
“With a brain that’s just a little bit bigger than a chickpea, they can remember way more than I can,” he says.
Taylor adds that not all bird species are flourishing in Colorado. Rosy finch and sage grouse populations are declining across the state because of human threats like warming temperatures, habitat loss, and oil and gas extraction.
But there’s a lot that people can do to help birds around Colorado. Taylor recommends planting native plants in your yard and keeping domestic cats indoors where they can’t hunt birds.
There’s also no better time to get into birding. Apps like, which was developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, can help novices identify the birds they see. Local birding groups around the state also lead trips that beginners can join.
You don’t have to go farther than the CU 91Ҹ campus to enjoy feathered friends, either. Several pairs of red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) nest on campus. Taylor even spotted one of them scooping up a rabbit from Norlin Quad last year. Violet-green swallows (Tachycineta thalassina) just returned to 91Ҹ last week and will soon be building their nests under the red tiles on many campus buildings.
“One of the reasons birds fascinate us is that they're everywhere,” Taylor says. “On a daily basis, you don’t see that many other forms of wildlife. But birds are around us all the time.”