Birds

A male wild turkey stands in a sunlit meadow in Morefield Campground

NPS/Mimi Gorman

Natural and Cultural Treasures

Mesa Verde National Park is home to over 200 species of birds, coming in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. They represent integral parts of the natural world, as well as important cultural symbols by the people for whom Mesa Verde is an ancestral homeland.

To those people, birds represent messengers to and from the heavens, and their feathers are important objects for use in prayer and ceremony, their colors imparting important cultural meaning. Birds are symbols of cardinal directions, stories, and personal qualities.

They were also companions in everyday life. Domesticated turkeys lived alongside people, providing feathers, meat, bones, and eggs for their use, while wild birds such as swifts and swallows lived in the same canyon alcoves that people built cliff dwellings inside of.

 

Home and Habitat

Mesa Verde has a wide variety of bird habitat. The park is mostly made of piñon-juniper woodland, high elevation oak chaparral, cliff and canyon forests of Douglas fir, and wide open meadows made by wildfires. Differences in elevation and moisture can create very different habitats despite being within a few feet of each other!

Some bird species are specialists, preferring a few or only one of these habitats. Others are generalists, and can be seen almost anywhere you go in the park.

For more tips on how and where to best view birds at Mesa Verde, check out the dedicated Birding page!

 

Pinyon jays are often seen in large, noisy flocks, searching for fruiting trees or caches of nuts that they have left behind from previous seasons.

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Piñon-Juniper Woodland

Short piñon pine and Utah juniper forests provide excellent habitat for birds that eat nuts, fruit, and wood-boring insects. Juniper titmice, mountain chickadees, white-throated nuthatches, and downy woodpeckers often form multispecies flocks in the dense branches.

Pinyon jays are the birds that depend on this habitat the most. Traveling in large noisy flocks, these birds have evolved beaks and featherless faces that are perfect for sticking in sticky, sap-covered pinecones to get the nuts inside! The birds will store many of these nuts for later, and those that they forget about help to grow more trees and keep the forest healthy.

 

Golden eagles are the largest bird of prey in Mesa Verde, and life in areas across the Northern Hemisphere.

NPS/Gavin Emmons

Oak chaparral

In the higher elevations of the park, large bushes of Gambel oak, Utah serviceberry, and mountain mahogany take the place of trees. This area is great for birds who eat acorns like the Woodhouse's scrub jay, and those who prefer semi-open spaces like the Green-tailed and Spotted Towhees.

This area is also home to the largest bird in Mesa Verde, the Golden eagle. These large predators next in the cliffs of the North Rim and use the chaparral as their hunting grounds, looking for mammals such as rabbits, squirrels, and have even been known to kill and eat deer!

 

Cliff dwellings sometimes make useful roosts for many species of birds, including this Mexican spotted owl.

NPS

Canyon forest

The bottoms and sides of canyons are cooler and wetter than most places in Mesa Verde, and are the only places in the park where Douglas firs can grow. These large trees and their understories are great roosts for tree-dwelling birds like the Williamson's sapsucker and large flocks of tiny bushtits.

This habitat is also home to the rarest bird in Mesa Verde: the Mexican spotted owl, an endangered species. These elusive birds only live in mature, old-growth forests, where they need large trees with cavities to nest. Much of the park's old-growth has been lost due to wildfires, but these birds are still seen on very rare occasions.

 

The northern flicker is an excellent example of how wildfire can benefit some species over others.

NPS/Mimi Gorman

Open meadow

Over the last 30 years, over 50% of Mesa Verde has experienced wildfires. Some of these areas have regrown with trees and bushes, but much remains open meadow with grasses, yucca, rabbitbrush, and the hollowed-out remains of burned trees. This provides habitat for birds such as western and mountain bluebirds, Cassin's kingbird, and other open-space preferring species.

One bird that does extremely well is the burn scars is the Northern Flicker. These woodpeckers prefer to eat ants on the ground, rather than bore into trees for grubs like their cousins. Nothern flickers in the west (like at Mesa Verde) have red on the underside of the wings, while flickers in the east have yellow!

 

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Species Attribute Definitions

Definitions

Occurrence

Occurrence values are defined below. One or more Occurrence Tags may be associated with each Occurrence value.

Present: Species occurs in park; current, reliable evidence available.

Probably Present: High confidence species occurs in park but current, verified evidence needed.

Unconfirmed: Species is attributed to park but evidence is weak or absent.

Not In Park: Species is not known to occur in park.

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Occurrence Tags

Adjacent: Species is known to occur in areas near to or contiguous with park boundaries.

False Report: Species was reported to occur within the park, but current evidence indicates the report was based on misidentification, a taxonomic concept no longer accepted, or other similar problem of error or interpretation.

Historical: Species' historical occurrence in park is documented. Assigned based on judgment as opposed to determination based on age of the most recent evidence.

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Abundance

Abundant:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, and counted in relatively large numbers.
• Plants: Large number of individuals; wide ecological amplitude or occurring in habitats covering a large portion of the park.

Common:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, but not in large numbers.
• Plants: Large numbers of individuals predictably occurring in commonly encountered habitats but not those covering a large portion of the park.

Uncommon:

• Animals: Likely to be seen monthly in appropriate habitat and season. May be locally common.
• Plants: Few to moderate numbers of individuals; occurring either sporadically in commonly encountered habitats or in uncommon habitats.

Rare:

• Animals: Present, but usually seen only a few times each year.
• Plants: Few individuals, usually restricted to small areas of rare habitat.

Occasional:

• Animals: Occurs in the park at least once every few years, varying in numbers, but not necessarily every year.
• Plants: Abundance variable from year to year (e.g., desert plants).

Unknown: Abundance unknown

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Nativeness

Native: Species naturally occurs in park or region.

Non-native: Species occurs on park lands as a result of deliberate or accidental human activities.

Unknown: Nativeness status is unknown or ambiguous.

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List Differences

The Checklist contains only those species that are designated as "present" or "probably present" in the park.

The Full List includes all the checklist species in addition to species that are unconfirmed, historically detected, or incorrectly reported as being found in the park. The full list also contains species that are "in review" because their status in the park hasn't been fully determined. Additional details about the status of each species is included in the full list.

The checklist will almost always contain fewer species than the full list.

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Species attribute definitions

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