4,078 total bird species observed

Colorado Birding Challenge

Join us May 20, 2023 as we raise funds for Pinyon Jay conservation in Colorado.

$27,094Raised of $50,000

Competition Team Categories

May 20th Competition

Competition teams participating on May 20th are broken into different categories. After the dust of everyone's birding days settles, we tally up each team's totals and announce winners for each category. 🏆

Consult with your team members on how you'll choose to compete (or if you want to compete at all!). You'll be asked to pick a category upon sign up.

  1. Green: All birding is done by non-motorized means such as walking, cycling, and kayaking (you may drive to a single destination)
  2. Automobile: A classic "big day" where you may drive to multiple locations
  3. Youth: High school age or younger (must have an adult driver!)

County Registrations- Birding By Par

Not all Colorado counties were created equal. Some are large, some are small, some are urban, some are rural, some have diverse habitats, some not so much.

CFO has developed a handicap system based on a decade of eBird data that will establish "par" for each county. This par is essentially the total number of species that one would expect to find in that county at that time of year.

Teams will be scored according to the total species they observe divided by par for the county they birded. Teams will be ranked by the total percentage of par they score.

This is a novel approach and there are some obvious challenges, such as the disparity in data between heavily birded counties like Boulder, Denver and Larimer vs. much less birded counties like Huerfano, Moffat or Sedgwick. If anything, we hope this will motivate teams to select these under-birded counties!

Download Par for Colorado Counties (PDF)

Rules of Participation

These Rules shall be the official rules for the Colorado Birding Challenge competition and shall supersede and take priority over any official rules for ABA Big Day competitions. For clarification of any rule or resolution of any conflicts in interpretation of these rules or the ABA Big Day rules, as they relate to this competition, please consult the event judges by emailing cobc@cobids.org.

Click here for detailed rules.

Use of E-Bird

eBird has many user-friendly instructions available at eBird.org, many are listed on the CFO Learning webpage cobirds.org/improve-your-birding. If you aren’t familiar with eBird Trip Reports, you can learn more on their support page on eBird Trip Reports. If you do not find the answer one of these ways, you may contact cobc@cobirds.org for additional assistance.

If you are unable to use eBird to organize your observations, and report your results, you may still participate in the non-competing "Bird Your Way" category and the money you raise is still valuable and appreciated. However, you will be disqualified from the competition as the judges will not be able to access your documentation of rare birds.

Learn How to Use E-Bird