It’s the case of the white-tailed ptarmigan.
That’s a famously elusive grouse that cloaks itself by turning snow white in the winter and brown as a stick come summer, and becoming virtually invisible against the windswept rocks, low shrubs and snowbanks of their high-mountain habitat.
They’re the only birds in North America who spend their entire life cycle at such high elevation, nesting above timberline in the alpine tundra of Western mountains, helped by their feathered feet and dense plumage that allows them to walk on top of snow and even roost inside snowbanks.
Thanks to their fugitive nature, many birders have added the ptarmigan to their birding life list, which lands them on the internet doorstep of certified master naturalist Ryan Dibala, founder and owner of Arvada-based Birding Man Adventures.
“They’re hard to find. People hire a guide to find them,” Dibala said. “It can be stressful. There are no guarantees. You’re dealing with wildlife, not a zoo.”
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A September trip, however, netted Dibala’s client one of those prized sightings.
“We’re here with a beautiful covey of ptarmigan,” Dibala says in an Instagram post (@gobirdingman).
“I doubt you’ll be able to see. They’re nestled into the rocks here. I think we have six of them. It’s like ‘where’s Waldo?’ You’re staring at these things and all of a sudden, five minutes later, you see another one you didn’t see before. It’s the most incredible cryptic coloration you can imagine.”
Dibala, who started his company in 2022, offers a variety of tours, including half-day tours, like Bighorn and Birds ($300 per group), and full-day tours, including a nature and birding hike in Rocky Mountain National Park ($165 per person/$495 per group), and The Birds of Pawnee ($495 per group), which takes birdwatchers out to the Pawnee National Grassland in northeastern Colorado. Find his offerings at gobirdingman.com.
Fluent in Spanish, Dibala does international tours. He finished one to northern Ecuador in the first half of October, and has two planned to Costa Rica in January and February ($3,200-$3,900, not including airfare and other incidentals): “My primary objective is to use locals and the services of birdwatchers and guides who can connect us to farms not super popular with tourists.”
It was the magnificent bald eagle that sparked Dibala’s love for birds. After studying wildlife biology in college, he worked as a wildlife researcher restoring the raptors to Channel Islands National Park in California. From there he studied avian distribution in the Talamancan cloud forests of Costa Rica, and then spent two years working on conservation projects as a Peace Corps volunteer.
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After returning to the U.S., he earned a master’s by studying the cerulean warbler, a tiny song bird that migrates up from South America, and then a Ph.D. in agroforestry, and went on to teach conservation biology to university students in South Africa and Chilean Patagonia.
Birding Man began as a response to academia burnout — he wanted a new way to educate people and provide them with memorable experiences in nature. And slowly, he’s also begun to incorporate mindfulness into his guiding — quiet contemplation pairs nicely with birding.
“We’re so distracted. We have these weapons of mass distraction in our pockets,” Dibala said.
“One thing about birdwatching I love is it slows us down. We’re looking at something smaller and we slow down and think about how they interact with the rest of the natural world. That can lead to us paying attention to our senses and what’s singing around you.”
Colorado’s a grand place to be a wildlife tour guide, as it’s one of the top 10 states for birding, in his opinion, thanks to the altitudinal diversity provided by the mountains.
A few of his favorite spots include Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, about 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver; Chatfield State Park, which has one of the biggest list of birds in the state due to its number of habitats; Rocky Mountain National Park, where he takes many clients in the spring and summer; Lake Estes, a reservoir in Estes Park; and Matthews-Reeser Bird Sanctuary, on the west end of Lake Estes, which attracts migratory birds.
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And winter, even though it is his slump season, also can be a surprisingly rich time to spot interesting waterfowl and raptors, such as golden eagles, ferruginous hawks and merlin falcons, which alight on the plains.
Last summer, during a few days of tours in Queens State Wildlife Area north of Lamar, he experienced one of his most memorable Colorado bird sightings. Hearing a strange call, he followed the sound to find a bird out on a perch and sporting a crest on its head.
“Wow, that’s a quail. I’d never seen a scaled quail before,” Dibala said.
“It’s a bird of drier, almost canyon country. It’s a beautiful bird. It was a lifer — a bird you’ve never seen before. I thought is this supposed to be here? It makes you feel there are so many personal discoveries to be had. That’s what keeps birding fun. It’s a little treasure hunt.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-19 01:00:00
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