Pikes Peak Birding & Nature Festival

The 8th Annual Pikes Peak Birding and Nature Festival will be held May 18-21, 2023!

Spring migration along Colorado’s Front Range is often full of surprises. The Pikes Peak region has much to offer, with the shortgrass prairie rising to meet the forested foothills and deep canyons of the southern Front Range, and rich, riparian forests providing for countless birds, insects, and other wildlife.

Develop and refine your identification skills of birds by sound with Nathan Pieplow, author of the Peterson Field Guides to Bird Sounds of North America. Or visit a high-elevation ranch to find birds and learn how a local land trust has cooperated with ranchers to preserve the majestic Pikes Peak viewshed. Join world-renowned Flammulated Owl researcher, Dr. Brian Linkhart, in the Manitou Experimental Forest to look for these diminutive raptors.

Several new events are available for participants, including insect blacklighting and a trip to a private ranch along a lush, riparian corridor. Field trips will also visit the rarely accessible, Jimmy Camp Creek Park and Corral Bluffs Open Space. Participants have the opportunity to explore geology in the restricted-access portion of the Paint Mines Interpretive Park or venture through the sub-alpine forest to the summit of Pikes Peak. Discover your artistic side through a wildlife and nature-sketching workshop with a local birder-artist.

Observe which bird species thrive in our regional parks or learn about the geology of the renowned Colorado Springs Garden of the Gods city park. You can enjoy a behind-the-scenes tour at one of America’s highly regarded zoos, see birds in the hand at banding sessions, hone your skills at a photography workshop, explore the latest research about the connection between dinosaurs and birds, or enjoy a lunch with ranch hands at a working ranch.