Colorado Upland Bird Watching:
A Wild Thing To Do
What exactly is a Colorado upland bird? I didn't have a clue. So I started with the dictionary and looked up "upland". Here's what I found. Upland: 1. high land esp. at some distance from the sea (yeah, Colorado qualifies):plateau. 2. ground elevated above the lowlands, along rivers or between hills. Okay, that's clear as mud. All of Colorado is "ground elevated above the lowlands"! Do they mean prairies? Forests? Barren rock? Next I tried Google. Couple of towns called "Upland". Not what I wanted. Definitions were much the same as the dictionary, except one says "typically forested". Okay, I'm not getting really far with this. All of Colorado is upland. Doesn't that make all the birds of Colorado... upland birds? Oh, but then I see "hunting" attached to upland in some of the links.
Maybe they mean game birds of Colorado. In which case that would include things like pheasants, grouse, turkeys, ducks... I'm not sure. I'm a bird watcher, not a bird hunter. I can't imagine shooting down something that flies (or anything else for that matter).
So, I'm guessing here, but I think a Colorado upland bird is a game bird that lives in the Colorado uplands. As in, nearly anywhere in Colorado. But don't quote me.
And watch out for upland bird crossings, like these meandering Blue Grouse (probably the ones the La Plata bird checklist calls the Dusky Grouse). We stop for all birds! How else can we take our pictures?Good luck hunting up some Colorado birds to watch on your next visit!
Want to read more about birding in the area? Click any of the links below to go to our other bird pages:
Colorado Bird Houses
Wild Birds of Colorado
State Bird of Colorado
Bird Watching in Colorado
Colorado Bird Watching Clubs
Colorado Bird Watching 2
Birds of Colorado 2
Return to Colorado Birds main page from the Colorado Upland Bird page.
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