Tale Feathers: Winter 2026 Transcript

[Eva]: As a bird watcher, I keep a lot of lists of birds I've seen. I have a life list of all the birds that I've identified since I've become a birder. I keep a list of birds I've seen in different states. By far, my favorite list I keep is my yard list. This is a list of birds I seen from my house, my kitchen window, my bedroom window, or just the little patch of grass outside.  

I've lived at this location in North Boulder for just two years, and this week I got a new life bird. I was very excited. Walked outside. I didn't see it. Like many birds, I heard it first, this little jumbling sound high up in the cottonwood. I was very excited because I knew instantly it was going to be a new bird for my list. It was a Townsend's solitaire. If you haven't seen a Townsend Solitaire, it's probably because they're small, they're gray. I really find them cute. They have this like striking white eye ring, buffy little wing patches, but you often hear them first. And that's how I found my 54th yard bird this week. And it was something to celebrate. I love yard birding because it makes you appreciate every single common bird. If it's a house finch or a Townsend solitaire, each of them has its own merit, value, and gets you excited. And so every time I'm outside, I'm always looking, listening, kind of gets me grounded and tuned in to where I live. Now, as a birder, I meet a lot of people out there that keep lists that are unique and strange, like birds they've seen from a tiny airplane window or birds they've seen in a baseball park. I've also met birders who have not kept any list whatsoever. They just like to appreciate them, identify them when they see them on the trail or at their bird feeder. And that's really one of the most amazing things about birding. There's no right way to do it or wrong way to do it, especially if it's getting you outside and connected to nature and birds, then you're doing it right. It's bringing you joy. And that's what I'm hoping this podcast does. Opens your eyes to some new birds in your neighborhood or wherever you're looking. Welcome to Forces of Open Space. I'm your host, Eva Lark, and this is our winter episode of Tail Feathers. And I'm very excited today to have a special guest, one and the only Ted Floyd. Thank you for being here. 

[Ted]: Eva, thanks for having me. Looking forward to 

[Eva]: It. We like people to give their own introduction. So I'd like to invite you to tell the folks listening what affiliations you have in the birding world or here locally in Boulder. We're recording this. 

[Ted]: Sure. Well, again, I'm Ted and I'm a lover of birds. And in some ways, that's sort of the beginning and the end of it for me. But I do have a number of affiliations because birdwatching really is my, I don't want to say it's my entire life, but it's a very large part of my life. It's my avocation. It's also my livelihood. I am primarily affiliated with the American Birding Association. I am the editor of Birding Magazine. I also do web work and I work with the young birder programs with the American Birding Association as well. I've also had a long and, in my mind, fruitful collaboration with National Geographic. We've just worked together on three field guides, all of which were published in 2025. Here in Boulder County, and I'll say sort of in the metro region in general too, I'm involved with so many organizations, I lose track of all of them. But I have been involved pretty heavily with Colorado field ornithologists and Denver field ornithologists. I've certainly had them off and on relationships. I don't mean that in a bad way, just in as much as I sometimes let memberships lapse, but a shout out for sure to the Boulder Bird Club, Boulder County Audubon Society, some of the other really great local and regional groups out here as well. Also, I've really been fortunate to fall in with the group with Lafayette Birds. It's a civic undertaking. We get together once a month on the first Sunday of each month and go bird watching together. Well, open to anybody. You can bring children and non-birding companions. You can bring dogs and cell phones and bicycles and anything else you want to. And we just have a grand old time on the first Sunday of each month. 

[Eva]: And what's the location of that? Does it change or is it one place? 

[Ted]: No, it's always what starts at one place. We always start at Greenlee Wildlife Preserve right in Lafayette. It's very conveniently about a 45 second run from my house. So I've just let listeners know where I live. But it's at Greenlee Wildlife Preserve right there in Lafayette. That's pretty near the intersection of Baseline and 287. And we get started at 1 p.m. On the first Sunday of each month. It's a great way to meet 80 to 100 or more of your best birding buds and also to see an awful lot of really good birds. I know it's sort of just right there in the suburbs, but Greenlee Wildlife Preserve and the nearby Wanaka Lake and Hecla Pond have a really remarkable diversity of birds all year long. 

[Eva]: Well, Ted, I've been a big admirer of you for many years. You're a wonderful author, podcaster, editor of the award-winning magazine, and I first virtually met you in 2008 or 2009. I was a fledgling birder back then. It was just a virtual email exchange, but the lasting impression was I was introduced to you by some folks at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and they introduced you as this big expert. The way that you responded was so welcoming, kind, and not intimidating. And I've always thought of you as being such a birding ambassador. Has that always been the case? 

[Ted]: Well, it's very kind of you to say that. I'll say back at you, but in the sense of the birding community in general, what's just so wonderful to me about birdwatching is how, you know, with a few exceptions, of course, but in general, whether one is celebrated, you know, veteran of birdwatching and ornithology for decades, or whether you're just getting started in none of that really matters. I always get a kick out of how, especially when I'm traveling abroad, I might meet somebody who barely speaks English, except for a shared love for birds, probably just be the sort of person I might just walk right by. And you just go birdwatching with somebody for three or four minutes. And it's like you're twins separated at birth who just finally met each other again. And you're just the best of friends. And it sounds like I'm engaging in hyperbole, but I really am not. You just put two bird lovers together. And regardless of everything else in their life, they're where they came from or what they believe in or who they are. Birds bring us together. And I'm sure that that's true, by the way, of other hobbies about which people are passionate. But something about birdwatching that's just so inspiring to me is that we just sort of all get together and share our love for birds. 

[Eva]: I agree. One thing that we like to talk about in this podcast is people's spark bird, or it doesn't have to be a bird per se. It could be just like what got you connected to birds for the first time. Is there something that hooked you? 

[Ted]: My short answer is no, there's not a bird, but I do have sort of a two-part story for you there. So I started off as a very young person. I was very much into birdwatching by the time I was about 12 years old. And what got me into it was actually sort of a little mandate by my mom that that I and my siblings keep a daily journal. My mother believed that we were terribly behind in our verbal abilities, and she compelled us. We were essentially forced to keep a daily journal. We were paid a pittance to be sure. It was a quarter a week. So do the math. It's about three cents per journal entry. And I remember back in like the fourth or fifth grade just being so disengaged from the process. All of my journal entries basically said I woke up, ate three meals, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. But after a while, I was really getting into it. And I was describing the weather, the garden, the people in the neighborhood, the animals in the neighborhood, and eventually the birds in the neighborhood. The time came up and I didn't have to keep the journal anymore. And I told my mom I wanted to keep doing it. And she said, that's fine, but I won't pay you anymore. So I kept writing journals anyhow and just got more and more into birds. So I actually think that being in this weird sense, like, you know, I don't want to say forced, but strongly compelled to keep a journal really got me to observe birds. The world of birds. However, the animal that really, really started me off on my life list was actually an opossum. We were city people. I grew up in a big city back east and we were just on a little vacation in Virginia and I saw an opossum and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. I still think that opossums, by the way, are very, very beautiful. And I totally remember like the date, the time, but I went back home and took out a sheet of paper and wrote down, you know, animal number one opossum. And then the next morning I went out and saw a dog and a cat and a cow and a rooster and The next thing you know, I was, you know, seeing Carolina chickadees and turkey vultures and red-bellied woodpeckers. So that's how I got started, actually. I was already writing things down. And then I saw an opossum, which caused me to write down a list of things I'd seen. And within two or three days, I was a birdwatcher. 

[Eva]: Wow, kind of listing almost got you into birds too, like listing out the animals you saw, listing the birds. 

[Ted]: It's funny for you to ask that. I mean, the answer, I guess, is yes, I did keep a list of the animals seen. Keep in mind, I was a 12-year-old at the time. It started off with opossum, rooster, chicken. I might have put human on the list as a matter of fact. You're right, I did have a chronological and numerical sequence of animals seen and that eventually became a life list of birds. I wouldn't have used the word life list at the time.  


You're right, I did have a list of animals seen, but I also want to point out that that was preceded by just journal entries about saw a beautiful cloud, the weather got colder today, the garden is doing well, so it was preceded by more general observations of the natural world. 

[Eva]: Well, I'm very lucky that I get to be a mentor with the American Birding Association. That's 

[Ted]: Right. Thank you for doing 

[Eva]: That. With the field journals module specifically, which is, it sounds like you were really drawn to nature through field journaling. And I think it's such a wonderful practice for people of all ages. Do you still keep a field journal of some sort? 

[Ted]: Yes, but it's largely digital these days. I make no apologies for that. Back in the day, if you go back long enough, they didn't have pen and paper and they didn't even have writing and they didn't even have language at one point in the history of our species. So yes, I keep a daily record of what I see. I do it mostly now through a checklist with eBird and iNaturalist or digital media. So I take pictures of photos of birds. I make videos of birds. I make audio recordings. I'm also still a compulsive writer. And if you were, for example, to look at my eBird checklist, you would see the comment field full of notes and you would see actually with most of the species of birds also notes as well. So I keyboard in content now and I tap it into my phone also more than I would have in the day. That said, anytime that I'm sort of outside my comfort zone, which is Colorado, I do have a notebook with me and I do just sort of jot down things. And it's really just as a, for memory, more anything else, where I was, what I saw, questions, that I had. So I do keep a daily record of everything that I see, and I do that every single day, believe it or not, but it's typically tapping into a phone or typing into a keyboard. 

[Eva]: I know I was very lucky. I worked at Hog Island Audubon Camp for close to a decade. It's a residential camp, mostly for adult birdwatchers, but they do have weeks for teenagers. And I got to spend a week with your daughter. 

[Ted]: You did. I am aware of that. 

[Eva]: One thing that really impressed me about her was her natural curiosity of the world around her. And she was really engaging in that through iNaturalist. For those at home, it's a community science app where you can take photos and it can be mushrooms, plants, insects. You're crowdsourcing things. The identification, it goes into this larger data field that scientists around the world can use. Are you also a naturalist, like super user, like your daughter? I 

[Ted]: Wouldn't call myself a super user. She did get me into it for sure. She had gotten into it sort of shortly before the pandemic when she was in middle school and then sort of really took it to the next level, starting in ninth grade, which is when the pandemic started for her. So I've more or less picked that up from her. She's more of, as you say, an iNaturalist super user than I am. But I certainly am an iNaturalist user. I'm a fairly regular contributor, not daily the way that I am with eBird. But by the way, since you mentioned my daughter Hannah in connection with Hog Island, going back to journaling, there may be something that runs in the family here. Before she went out there, she made a point of reading one of Scott Wiedensahl's books, because Scott Wiedensahl was with you all that year. As well and he noticed something that Hannah was doing which was you know marking up a book and asked what it was and turned out was his book and he said that he had never seen a book with as much writing in it as that it's certainly not one of his own books with as much writing in it and last i heard his phone photo of his note oh sorry of his book with her scrawl is part of his presentation so um I know Scott's written a number of marvelous books, but whichever one it was, I guess it was so heavily annotated by my daughter that it's a part of the presentation. 

[Eva]: The first time I ever met you in person, it was you were birding with your daughter. How was it being a parent, like with your children, getting them outside? Did you have to drag them along or were they coming willingly? I'm curious as a parent of two young children who I take birding often, how's that experience? 

[Ted]: It's funny, I didn't expect we would go in this direction, but I actually hold fairly strong opinions in this matter, which I suppose I'll be sharing with you all right now. So I am a huge proponent of starting as early as possible. And I really mean from day zero. I have another child, a son. I won't go into all the details here because they're quite extraordinary, but he and I were birding in a blizzard the day before. He was born day zero. He was not yet a day old, and we were already out birdwatching in a fabled boulder blizzard from 2006, if you want to go back just a little ways there. So, no, I'm a huge fan of getting the kids out as early as possible. You'll have to slow down at times. You do have to change diapers and deal with other exigencies when they do arise, but... I have no regrets about having taken very, very young people with me. And again, I don't mean five years old or two years old or two months old, but just right from the very, very beginning. The youngest of children are just insatiably curious about anything in the world. And I find especially about the natural world as well. So some of my happiest memories really are from the earliest days with Hannah and Andrew when they were not capable of certainly not walking or speaking, but in their way really of being awed by the natural world. And that rubbed off on me as well. 

[Eva]: I have found that one of the greatest gifts of being a parent is getting to see the world through their eyes. So thanks for sharing that personal antidote with us. You were mentioning earlier that you've gotten a few books that have come out this past year. Can you tell us a little bit about what they are about? 

[Ted]: Well, sure. So the three books in 2025 were all very much related to one another. They're three National Geographic titles. They're all field guides to the birds, and they are about as straightforward as can be. A field guide to the birds of the eastern U.S. And Canada, a field guide to the birds of the western U.S. And Canada, and a field guide to all the birds of the United States and Canada.  

Some of the listeners may know that the National Geographic franchise goes back now well over 40 years. So I was coming in on a very, very well-established tradition of excellence at National Geographic. But we really attempted to revitalize the series, the franchise as well. So I and the others involved in it made a real effort to write for an audience with 21st century sensibilities. And really, you know, we're in the second quarter of the 21st century right now. Where does all the time go? I very much wrote, and it's not just me, there are a lot of people involved in this book, but for us. An audience that by and large hadn't even been born when the first of these field guides came out in the 1980s. So I'd like to say that the presentation of content is strongly holistic, ecological, that it puts the bird into its natural context. There are, of course, feathers and field marks and technical points within the book, but placing the bird in its environment, and that's not just a scientific biotic environment, it's also can even be sort of a cultural environment, you know, sort of what a bird might signify for a human in terms of the changing of the seasons or the role that a bird might play in culture. 

[Eva]: I'm a big fan of eBird and Merlin, which are both apps. I also love a field guide. And I, especially if I'm birding abroad or somewhere else, I have to have that on me. What do you think the value is still in like a actual book field guide for people? 

[Ted]: So let's just take a bird that's incredibly common here in Colorado, the American robin. Everybody has access to a robin. So if you go to the Marvelous Birds of the World page for the American robin, now it's online, but it runs to the equivalent of dozens of print pages. If you were to print the thing out, it would go on and on and on and on.  

Very valuable information about all the molts and plumages, about changes in populations, about some of the very picky details of anatomy and physiology. But how do you say all of that on a page that also has four other species of thrush on it? Do the math here. What is that? You know, 150 words? I'm not sure. So I think that the huge value of a field guide done right is distilling all of that knowledge sort of into the essence of the bird. I like to think of really good Field guide writing is haiku-like. You know, a haiku is, you know, this incredibly powerful, sometimes like universal statement, but it's only three short lines. Now, I had a little bit more than that for the field guide. So the challenge, and it really, it's a major like intellectual and artistic challenge, although it's one that I really very much enjoy, is to say like everything that you can say about the Robin in just eight or 10 or 15 lines of text. 

[Eva]: I love that idea of a field guide being like Haiku. I think that's an interesting frame for people to pick up their field guide and look through it. And I do not envy one would condense the information down. 

[Ted]: For somebody who might have access to that field guide and might have access to the Robin account, I don't have it in front of me right here. But I imagine you'll find a combination of fairly technical language in there and probably some... More sort of emotional language in there about the robin as well. The experience of seeing a bird like a robin, this wonderful blend of sort of technical and I can't think of a better word than emotional. There's an emotional response and a very sort of scientific response. It's not right brain, left brain. They're all there once at the same time. And that sort of instantaneous engagement of the bird as both something that we feel powerfully about, but that we can also sort of be more rational or objective about is a real draw to me for birdwatching and nature study. 

[Eva]: I want to ask you a question about the American Birding Association. I know you're the editor of the magazine. You help with the young birder programs. Is there an aspect of the job that you like the most? 

[Ted]: Let me tell this by way of an anecdote. Decades ago, I remember reading, actually, I think it was in Birding Magazine, although I may be wrong about this. This was long before I had the job, a survey of bird watchers. And I think the question was something along the lines of like, how many birders have you met in your life? Keep in mind, this would have been in the 1990s. So it's, you know, 30 some years ago now. And the responses were 1 to 5, maybe like 10 to 15, 15 to 50 or more. And there was one contributor who said more than 1,000. And it was Ken Kaufman. And I remember, even though the name was very, very well known to me at the time, thinking, how is that possible? How could somebody possibly have met 1,000 bird watchers because in the 90s they really were fairly rare through my work at the ABA I am certain that I have met five thousand bird watchers and probably more than that I the numbers you know way into the four figures if not into the five figures so just the opportunity for now my getting onto it gosh 24 years at the ABA now, just to meet bird people like every single day. So here we are, you and me today. It's going to be more people tomorrow. It was different people yesterday. I meet like in real life, never mind the internet and phone calls and so forth, like actually in real life, real bird watchers daily. It's just the two of us today. So you're only one person today. A few days ago, I was in the presence of close to 100 bird watchers. And next weekend, I'll also be in the presence of many bird watchers as well. In answer to your question, it's the ABA more than anything else that has brought me into contact with so many birdwatchers. 

[Eva]: And then even for those listening at home right now, you're touching all their lives. They're listening to our conversation. You also are going on the American Birding Association's podcast. 

[Ted]: Right. So I am a frequent guest of the podcast. Nate Swick, based out of North Carolina, is the host. Just a marvelous lineup of guests who actually sort of know what they're doing and are fairly well rehearsed. But I'm the fallen. Whenever we can't procure somebody or something happens at the last minute, People get sick, for example, or their schedules change. I'm brought in to do a segment called Random Birds, and it is just as fun as can be. Nate spins a random generator. He punches it into his computer, and bird names come up, and he and I just riff on the bird for anywhere from like 5 to 15 minutes. There's no preparation, no rehearsal. It's completely extemporaneous. I have no idea if the next bird is going to be a vireo or a flycatcher or a loon. He just throws a bird my way, and we randomize 

[Eva]: It. Well, that kind of segues into our next segment. We do this thing called meet your neighbor. And I randomly pick a bird that's local here in Boulder County. And we talk about it, but I did tell you the bird in advance this time. I said that we were going to talk about the cackling goose bird that I think maybe people have overlooked. I was on a bird walk recently and people kept saying, oh, there's so many Canada geese. There's so many Canada geese. And I was like, oh, those are actually cackling geese. And I realize probably many people do not know the difference with good reason, right? This is a species that for many, many years were lumped together up until 2004 when cackling geese became a distinct species.  

 For those listening, how would you describe the differences between the two species? 

[Ted]: Right. So I'm actually going to actually repeat something you just said, because it's so central to the story, which is that until 2004, it's an odd thing about birder psychology, but nobody even knew about the cackling goose because it was treated as part of the Canada goose species. But we realized a few years beforehand, but we formalized it in the year 2004 with actually a split of what was then called, it's confusing, the Canada goose was split into two species. One retains the name Canada goose, the other becomes the cackling goose.  

Cackling geese are fantastically abundant in Boulder County in the winter months. In fact, they outnumber Canada. Canada geese considerably during the winter months i would say that the cackling goose is probably the most conspicuous bird in the county and also by the way in the whole front range metro region really in most of eastern colorado during the winter months here so like how did we never know it? The reason why is because it was, quote unquote, just a Canada goose. So here's the deal. The bird formerly known as the Canada goose now split into the Canada goose and the Cackling goose. They all look the same. Terms of their feathers, they're the very, very familiar, we call them white-cheeked or white-chinned geese. They're the ones with the black necks and then the big white cheek and the brown bodies. But there are major structural and vocal and behavioral and ecological differences. So let's just start quickly with what they look like.  

So cackling geese are smaller. They are more rotund overall. They have shorter, thicker necks, and they have shorter, stubbier bills. And the Canada goose is the opposite of all that. The Canada goose is a longer, larger bird. It's often sort of looks low slung and maybe pointy. The neck is extremely long and then the forehead is long and sloping and the bill is very long and sloping. The Canada goose is the fabled cobra chicken because, you know, they rear their heads back like a cobra and they hiss at you. And then the cackling goose is actually sort of more duck-like in its proportions. So those are some of the differences in appearance. They sound different too. As you might imagine, the cackling goose has a bit of a cackling sound. It's a little more of a yelp or a scream than a cackle. And the Canada goose has a honest to goodness deep throaty honk honk of a goose so their sounds are different the ecology is really wildly different as well the cackling goose is a much more migratory species they breed very very far north the arctic ocean coastal plain and up onto the canadian arctic archipelago so we call them arctic geese they're way way way way up there and then they migrate down south to colorado and point south as well in the winter months Their wintering grounds are in the process of a drastic rain shift right now. So they formerly wintered much farther south, but for some interesting reasons that we may or may not get into, they're wintering farther north in Colorado in particular. So they're more migratory. They're smaller. They sound different from the Canada goose. 

[Eva]: It is like one of my favorite things to do is drive around the agricultural fields of Boulder County, which we have thousands and thousands of miles of ag fields. And they're often filled with all types of geese, not just cackling geese and Canada geese. But I'm always looking for the unusual goose that's mixed in. 

[Ted]: Right. So we have several other possibilities here. There are two brilliantly white geese, the snow goose and the Ross's goose, which are sometimes seen in the county, much, much smaller numbers in the winter months. Less common species, the greater white-fronted goose. And then the sort of the rarity for us would be a bird called the brant. It's a smaller, all-black goose.  

Also, just to mix things up, we see hybrid geese. Cackling geese and snow geese sometimes hybridize up on the sort of like the northwest corner of the Hudson Bay and make their way down to Canada, sorry, down to Colorado sometimes. In the winter months. So most of those geese in the geese flocks in winter are going to be cackling geese and then secondarily Canada geese and then much less common those four other species. 

[Eva]: I know I was at Lagerman Agricultural Preserve. The parking lot's been closed for the past six months. They've been doing some parking renovations. I'm very excited that it is reopened with better drainage, more accessible parking lots. There's a better turnaround for our horse trailers. And I was lucky to see lots of different geese, including some of those hybrid cackling Ross or snow geese hybrids where the head's all white, but the body just looks like a cackling goose. If people are out there and you're seeing something unusual, well, it's probably because it's a hybrid and it is unusual. It's a mix and looks kind of like you took the head of one and put it on the body of the other. It literally does look that way. When you're seeing these literally thousands of geese on a reservoir or in a field, it can be kind of a fun game to look for the one that's standing out. 

[Ted]: I agree that it can be a fun game. I also want to point out that if you are thus inclined, it's also valuable for science to document these animals. A photograph posted to eBird or iNaturalist, or you don't even have to do that, post it to Facebook where an expert will tell you what it is, does valuably document the occurrence of the bird.  

Most of those goose species are increasing in number. And although that sounds very hopeful, it's not as good as you might think. It has to do with habitat and climate change, among other things. So I'd documenting how these populations are coming into contact with each other and hybridizing and winding up here in Colorado is valuable. I also agree with your earlier point, though, that it's just fun to add a different element, I guess, to goose identification.  

Hey, I should also say, both you and I have danced around this, but all these geese that we're talking about, except for the Canada goose, are here only in the winter months. So from, let's say, April to October, you're basically looking at just the Canada goose. That's the only goose species that's regularly here in boulder or anywhere in colorado in the warmer months it's in the winter when all sorts of challenging geese show 

[Eva]: Up i think a lot of people really pay attention to geese in the summer because they're having their babies and people are attracted to that so i can also understand where they're just like oh all these are canada geese but i know i wake up every morning hearing the geese outside my window and it's usually the last bird i see in the evening they're kind of soaring around trying to find a place to roost for the night I'm glad that we got to talk a little bit about cackling geese. And I invite you guys to go out there, especially on your reservoirs, agricultural lands. I mean, they're everywhere. They're in the middle of your cities and neighborhoods. I think that's the other really approachable thing about geese is they stand fairly close. You can really get to look at these field marks. They're not flying by or small like a songbird that's not going to stay still for you. 

[Ted]: Trying to document how many you're seeing is valuable as well. I'm simplifying this story a bit here, but as I said, the numbers are increasing. Birdwatchers, more than anybody else, because there's so many of us counting birds, can really help to show how populations are changing, both the numerical increase and also these range shifts and range expansions as well. 

[Eva]: You were mentioning how they historically wintered much farther south. And now we have these warmer winters today. We're courting this. It's a sunny, warm winter day in Colorado with no snow on the ground. When you were doing the field guide, was that something that happened that you noticed that there's a lot of rain shift in species? Was that something that was taken into a lot of consideration of like updated maps? 

[Ted]: Sure. So you mean for the cackling goose or for... 

[Eva]: Well, for all birds in general, but also the cackling goose. 

[Ted]: Yes. So big, easy question to ask, big question to answer. I'll try to go efficiently here. So the short answer is yes. It is remarkable just how many birds ranges have changed simply since the previous edition of this field guide, let alone the first edition more than 40 years ago. So we collaborate very closely with eBird, which we've mentioned here earlier, and they provided the data-driven range maps that populate the pages of that field guide. And as the Range maps would sort of, I don't want to say spew out of the printer because we don't deal with printers anymore, but when I would see the output, my first reaction for some of them was, no, this has to be wrong. But then I realized, no, this is actually right. These birds' ranges are changing so drastically. So a great many birds are occurring farther and farther north. And the winter range of the cackling goose is a good example of that. Climate change is part of it. In the case of the cackling goose, by the way, changes in agricultural practices are driving that northward trend. Range expansion as well. So that's at play there as well. But I was struck and I continue to be struck by just how many birds ranges have changed so much. On a Boulder County note here, so I've lived in the county for about 24 years, birds like a black-chinned hummingbird just didn't occur here at all when I arrived here. It's the most common breeding hummingbird in the lowlands right now. It's sort of the only common breeding hummingbird in the lowlands. Bush tits were scarce at best, and they're now widespread and common in the eastern part of the county. So those are two birds, again, the black-chinned hummingbird and the bush tit that increased and expanded drastically in our area. A bird like the ring-necked pheasant has pretty much disappeared in the 24, 25 years that I've been out here. 

[Eva]: We've been talking about some notable hybrids and more rare geese. Some other notable sightings, I think, in the last couple of months, you and I shared participation in the Christmas Bird Count, the Boulder County Christmas Bird Count, which was, I think, in its 84th year. 

[Ted]: Oh, Boulder was. Boulder. And then the actual, the overall Christmas Count is like the 125th or 126th year. That's right. 

[Eva]: That's right. And I was really struck how there was four new species for the boulder list, and three of them were warblers. 

[Ted]: What happened this winter, and it's exciting, but again, there's a little bit of a...  

A storm cloud about it was a large flock of warblers well i should say a diverse flock of warblers along boulder creek right near boulder high school the discovery started out with me back in november i saw a chestnut sided warbler back there and sort of just thought of it as a one-off i should have stayed with the flock because within days other birders had gone back and refound that bird but also birds that i didn't see like a pine warbler and northern perilla and i I believe orange crown and maybe something else in there, yellow rump warblers. It just kept piling on to Tennessee warbler. And I think we got like eight or nine species of warblers in that flock. So it was really, really exciting to see so many warblers along Boulder Creek in the winter. I was teasing my friends back east that in early December, we were seeing more birds on Boulder Creek in Boulder County than they would be seeing in New York or Pennsylvania on an average day in September. I mean, we were just seeing so many warblers. Of their warblers. That is, of course, a reflection of the warmer winters, which is a reflection of the broader drying and warming of the climate here in Colorado and everywhere else at our latitude as well. But really remarkable how many of those birds were there. The orange-crowned warbler is still being reported, at least now into February, and the perillas, multiple perillas, were there certainly into January, and I think some other birds as well. 

[Eva]: Yeah, I think it's important what you mentioned that, you know, when we see these rare birds, they're also telling this other story, a story of climate change or habitat changes. Sometimes birders are often just focused on, oh, it's a rare bird or it's exciting. But these deeper stories that they're telling us about how our world is changing is, I think, so enlightening and just adds another layer to the discovery. 

[Ted]: The really powerful position of birdwatchers just to document this. The warblers along the creek are perhaps anecdotal. It's just one flock of warblers in one county in the United States. But if similar things are happening in Utah and Montana and Idaho, and not just in 2025, 2026, but the winter following and the winter after that, patterns really begin to accumulate. The power of the people, of birdwatchers, very massive numbers, carefully documenting what's out there is really contributing to our understanding of changing bird populations. Thank you. 

[Eva]: Things like eBird, which allows anyone to submit their sightings to this larger data set to really show us what is happening. It is bringing together just a huge community of observers, helping us really focus on what areas we should be looking at to protect or what areas we're seeing declines and what that can mean. So I'm a huge fan of eBird, and you've mentioned how you use it. I'm curious, how long have you been eBirding? 

[Ted]: Well, I started on January 1st, 2007, and I've actually submitted one complete eBird checklist every single day since, and I have by far the longest consecutive days eBird checklist streak on earth. It's approaching 7,000 days right now. So I have e-birded every single, I've submitted at least one complete checklist every single day for almost 20 years right now. And I have no intention to stop.  

Over on one of our young birder channels at the ABA, the kids have created two hashtags. One of them is hashtag when will Ted Floyd die? And the other is hashtag what would it take to kill off Ted Floyd?  

Because I've been e-birding consecutive days, literally longer than any of them have been So I guess that qualifies me as a compulsive eBird user. I do want to say, though, that sure, it's fun. It's to some extent a game. But keep in mind, and I tell myself this every single day, too, that we're contributing something that goes way beyond a number or personal gratification. I have nothing against personal gratification when it comes to birds. We should go out and have a good time watching birds. But I do take care to go back through my notes and make sure I got it right. I am extremely adept at accidentally typing in white-winged dove when I went morning dove. Unfortunately, the checklist for Greenleaf Preserve at this time of the year has American Dipper and European Starling next to them. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've accidentally typed in American Dipper when I meant European Starling. So to everybody out there, I very much encourage you to use eBird, but also to check your work. I make many, many, many mistakes, and I imagine we all do as well. 

[Eva]: I think that's actually one of the interesting things about birdwatching as a hobby, because it doesn't matter if you are this expert decades-long birder or you're the beginner, we all make mistakes, and we often own those mistakes. Like, oh, yeah, that is just a leaf. Never mind. And I kind of think that in this society where we value perfectionism and everything's right, that it's interesting that we have this hobby where we all are able to say... Oh, no, I think I was wrong. Even going back to like the way I met you in this email exchange was kind of one of these situations. Yeah, I just think it's maybe unusual. 

[Ted]: To me, that's maybe the most gratifying thing of all about birdwatchers. Well, actually, I think the most gratifying of all is that they're generally nice to each other and want to share with each other. But right up there with that is they use the word perfectionism. And I mean, I know what you mean, but have a more positive spin. And I think that birders are really committed to the truth. To facts and data and evidence you know it's funny i can think of bird watchers who aren't very much like me in terms of what drives them what motivates and what inspires them but they're just as committed as i am or you are or anybody else to to getting it right especially in today's climate by which i mean human cultural climate a lot of people sort of openly questioning whether truth and data and facts and evidence are really even out there it's gratifying to me that bird watchers really make an effort to get it right.  

Of course we all make mistakes. I absolutely and completely get that. I'm really struck by how a birdwatcher who makes a mistake always fesses up to it. Yes, it might be annoying to be called out like, well, come on, Ted, that's not a sharp-shinned hawk. That's an American kestrel. At the end of the day, though, we appreciate the truth, the data, the facts, the evidence, and that's a wonderful thing to me about birdwatchers. 

[Eva]: Or we even admire each other for owning the mistake. I think that's something that I'm like, wow, they can also admit that that was wrong or confess 

[Ted]: Up to it. And let me also say, we're using words like mistake and confess and so forth. I just want to talk about the commitment to getting it right. I'm really struck by that, how if a little bird just flies by past us right here, both you and I, we'd want to get a second look. We'd want to get a careful look. I'd say, Eva, are you sure of that? And you'd say, yeah, I saw the white in the tail. And I might say, did you catch the white in the eye? And you might say, yes, I did. Yeah, we really, really are committed to, I think, getting it right. 

[Eva]: And that's another thing I really love about birding as a hobby is that sharing the identification together, sharing this moment together, kind of turning off the other things where you're like really just focused on something together. 

[Ted]: You mentioned the Boulder Christmas Bird Count a little bit earlier, and something that was, again, powerful and gratifying to me about the group that I was with was we were just from all over the place, demographically speaking. I think I'm probably the oldest person with our group, but we had really expert bird watchers, and one fellow had just started that day as a bird watcher. People just coming from very professional and scientific versus more sort of avocational and hobbyist approaches to bird watching, and we were just all in it together to try to count birds as accurately as possible. 

[Eva]: We mentioned Lagerman. We mentioned Boulder Creek. Are there any other favorite winter birding spots here in Boulder County that you would suggest for folks listening? 

[Ted]: So in the winter months, Boulder Creek is wonderful. It doesn't just have to be along the campus, you know, right downtown, a little bit downstream. So the Walden Saw Hill Ponds area is a great place for bird watching. I always like to get up into the high country at least once or twice, four or five times during the winter months. The number of birds up there are fewer, but it's just so special to have. Almost guaranteed encounters with birds like Pine Groosebeaks and Canada Jays and Clark's Nutcrackers, you know, some of the really iconic birds of the Rocky Mountains. So I love to get up way high when I can during the winter months. And then anytime that there's open water at big reservoirs, especially in colder weather, maybe there's like an ice shelf for the gulls and other birds to sit on, a lagerman is good in the winter and brilliant in the spring and fall. It's one of the best hotspots in the region in the spring and fall. Also, in the winter months, I'll just make an appeal to anybody who lives near a park with trees, with berries, bird feeders. You know, a lot of birds will concentrate at those as well. Don't imagine either that you have to get far from your home. I just love watching the ravens flying around 28th and Pearl Street in downtown Boulder. So there's a lot of neat stuff to be seen right in town as well. 

[Eva]: I think when I go grocery shopping is when I see the most gulls during the week. People often with me, I'm pointing them out. They're like, oh, why are they here? But there are birds truly everywhere. 

[Ted]: There really are. Right before I came up here, I just made a very, very quick sort of late lunch walk to Greenleaf Preserve right by my house, and there was a commotion with the cackling geese, going back to that earlier, all getting up. I looked up expecting to see a bald eagle, and it was a golden eagle, a bird that's actually quite uncommon in the winter in the east part of the county. They're out there, but we just don't see them very often. I was just thinking, here I am, some guy out on his lunch break, barely paying attention to birds. And the golden eagle, which is one of the most regal and glorious of all birds in the world, perhaps, was just soaring over my head. So there are birds everywhere. 

[Eva]: I really love the raptors in wintertime. At Boulder County Parks and Open Space, we have a raptor trip that you can go on. It's free. We have the most weekends. You can sign up on our website and we take you around to these little places like Loggerman is usually where we start. And then we just go around these agricultural fields and we're looking for golden eagles, bald eagles, fruganous hawks. Rough-legged hawks. There's just so much diversity in the wintertime with hawks. So I definitely encourage people, similar to your bird walk that you have in Lafayette, it's a great place to find friends, to share birds together. And I think that's one of the nice things about birds is bringing people together. 

[Ted]: I might get my knuckles wrapped for saying this. I'm going to go a little bit outside the county and say that an area I just encourage everybody to go to because it's so close to Boulder is Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge right outside Denver. It's a full-on, legit, real National Wildlife Refuge. It's one of the really magical urban National Wildlife Refuges. Winter no guarantees in this birding life but nearly guaranteed to see a fruginous hawk like you mentioned perhaps rough-legged hawk often the like the falcons merlin or prairie falcon it's a door-to-door if i avoid traffic on 270 it's just a half hour from my house in the southeastern part of boulder county 

[Eva]: I think that's a great suggestion. I usually try to go there at least once a winter. It's convenient if you need to pick someone up from the airport or drop someone off. I usually tack that little trip on one side or the other. It's also a great place to take out-of-town visitors because they'll see not only bird life, but animal life that they may associate with Colorado in this classic way. 

[Ted]: It's a real sort of taste of the prairie out there. 

[Eva]: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hope that you get people on the birdwalk that have listened to the podcast. I want to mention one thing coming up in the spring, which is World Migratory Bird Day. That'll be happening the second Saturday in May. There's a whole host of events happening across Boulder County. I know that we will have, with the Environment for the Americas, a World Migratory Bird Day festival out at Walden Ponds, but there'll be birdwalks. Throughout the weekend, I'm doing a birding big sit at Lagerman Ag Preserve. For those who want, we usually get for that May sit 50 plus species. Like you said earlier, it's just a excellent place for shorebird migration. And in the spring, you just get a diversity of birds.  

Do you have any other upcoming birding outings or things people get involved with? 

[Ted]: Let me actually go back to the Lagerman Big Sit. This will sound odd, but I think you and others will know where I'm coming from here. What you, of course, really, really want at Lagerman at that time of the year is bad weather. Lagerman Reservoir is probably more than anywhere else in Boulder, and what... Almost as much so as anywhere in Colorado, just legendarily associated with fallouts of rare birds in bad weather. So if you can schedule a nice upslope storm with rain and snow and sleet and east winds, you'll have every birder in the county joining you because that's the weather that brings in rare terns and godwits and even rarer birds to the parking lot, the land birds, but of course the water birds out on that west side. Good luck with that. If the weather's really bad, I might be joining you for the big sit.  

Oh, yeah, in terms of upcoming events, well, we've already talked about Lafayette birds, and I think that's the one I'll sort of primarily emphasize here, since it's been a little while since we laid out the specs there against the first Sunday of each month. So if I'm doing my math right, because there's not a leap. Year this year. I think that would be Sunday, March 1st at 1 p.m. Even if I have that March 1st part wrong, it's definitely the first Sunday of March at 1 p.m. And truly all are welcome. It's a really, really cool mix of famous birdwatchers whose names you might know and folks who are just absolutely brand new to birdwatching. You don't have to bring anything. You don't need binoculars. You don't need So I don't need a scope. I would bring a phone if you have it because you can get neat pictures of birds with your phone. But we break into three or four or five, sometimes six groups if we have a really large turnout. And we just sort of crisscross the preserve and the nearby Wanaka Lake. We usually get out. Some of the groups get out to Hekla Pond as well. But by March, some migrants will be coming in for sure. And I imagine we'll see great birds and I guarantee you good company. 

[Eva]: Well, I want to say on behalf of Boulder County Parks and Open Space, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I hope that our listeners at home have enjoyed learning more about birds, birdwatching, about you. Check out your latest field guides. Join you on a bird walk. Thanks again for being a part of this. 

[Ted]: Thanks again for having me, Eva. And to everybody else out there, I'll see you in the field. 

[Eva]: Everyone, you can find our programs at discover.boldercounty.gov. And a special thanks to Longmont Public Media.