{"id":22218,"date":"2025-05-16T17:01:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T23:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/birders-flock-to-cortez-for-18th-annual-birding-festival\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:12:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:12:37","slug":"birders-flock-to-cortez-for-18th-annual-birding-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/birders-flock-to-cortez-for-18th-annual-birding-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Birders flock to Cortez for 18th annual birding festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Birders
Birders in Yellow Jacket. (Erik Hendrickson\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Another Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival has come and gone. This year, the raptor-themed event marked 18 years.<\/p>\n

The festival remains the Cortez Cultural Center\u2019s biggest fundraiser, usually bringing in anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000. They have yet to tally totals for this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt supports us staying open and offering classes and education to the community,\u201d said Sherry Owens, a barista and board member at the Cortez Cultural Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe survive on grants, donations, memberships and fundraisers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to the festival website<\/a>, \u201cEach year new tours, and repeat favorites, explore an array of birding hot spots that attract avian species from loons and grebes to sparrows, grosbeaks, and finches.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, 24 tours went out during the five-day festival, which went from May 7 to May 11. An estimated 160 people attended from across the country, said Diane Cherbak, the festival chairperson.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontezuma County is somewhat unique in that it has a wide variety of habitats,\u201d which draws people in to bird here and attend the festival, Cherbak said.<\/p>\n

A lot of people come from the Four Corners region, she said, but some came in from California, Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

An ad in Living Bird, a nationwide magazine, helps attract people from all over, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSerious birders and even the not-so-serious birders have a life list of all the bird species they\u2019ve seen,\u201d she said. \u201cThey also have a target list of species they hope to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucy\u2019s Warbler, a bird found here and nowhere else in the state, is often on people\u2019s target lists, though seeing them \u201cis a stretch,\u201d said Cherbak.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny warbler is hard to find,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Target species are different for everyone. \u201cSome people\u2019s target bird is a magpie,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Often, those lists will influence which tour people go on. They\u2019ll see which species have historically been seen on any given tour, and book based on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many species you see depends on the area. On one tour Saturday (May 10) they saw 99 species,\u201d she said. \u201cThursday and Friday counts were low.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two tours saw sandhill cranes and two colts, which are baby sandhill cranes.<\/p>\n

In addition to the tours, they always bring in a keynote speaker and have a banquet and silent auction, too.<\/p>\n

This year, the raptor theme was inspired by the keynote speaker, Scott Harris.<\/p>\n

\"This
This year\u2019s keynote speaker at the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival, Scott Harris. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Harris, in addition to owning \u201cthe largest collection of John Steinbeck\u2019s Travels with Charley<\/em> in the world, playing harmonica in a blues band\u201d and writing more than 50 books in the past seven years, is a dedicated birder, according to the birding festival\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the books he wrote is called RaptorQuest: Chasing America\u2019s Raptors<\/em> and details \u201chis yearlong adventure tracking down every species of Raptor in the Lower 48 states,\u201d the website reads on.<\/p>\n

He chased 53 raptors across 34 states and shared about that experience on Saturday night, at the banquet, said Cherbak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned that barred owls are vicious,\u201d she laughed. \u201cI knew that great horned owls are. They\u2019ll go for great blue herons, cats \u2026 it was interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that planning the festival is a \u201c12-month endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as one ends, planning for the next one begins,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll debrief how this festival went later this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owens said the center is \u201calways looking for community partners to put things on,\u201d like this festival. If you\u2019re interested in collaborating or putting on an event with them, reach out to the Cortez Cultural Center at (970) 565-1151.<\/p>\n

\"This
This year marked 18 years of the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

year, about 160 people attended the raptor-themed event<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77623,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22218\/revisions\/77623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22218"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}