The 17th annual Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival is set for May 15-19, with registration to open in March.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” said organizer Diane Cherbak. “This is the 17th festival that we’re putting on this year.”
The festival spans five days, with various tours throughout the course of the festival, which can be signed up for in advance of the festival’s start.
“They’ll go out in the field with a tour guide that knows birds in the area. Sometimes they’ll spend time at just one location or spend all day in that particular location hiking around or will stop in several places, usually leaving between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. and returning around 3 in the afternoon,” Cherbak said.
Tour sizes are about 12 to 13 people, and there will be at least 25 different tours during the five-day festival.
“We offer tours and all the different birds and all these different habitats,” she said. “The tours are designed to focus on a particular habitat. When people come, they want to see as many species as they can.”
Cherbak added that most birders have what is called a “life list,” and a “life bird” is the bird you see for the first time in your life.
“People are always going for new life birds and they’ll want to cover as many different habitats so they can try to see the biggest variety of birds,” she said.
The festival has a flat fee, and then the tours have their own registration fee. The fees will be posted on the website, which will have more information in March.
Cherbak shared that there are a few different options for registration. There’s a full registration that includes the keynote banquet at the end of the festival and a daily registration for those who just want to take part in a few tours.
This year, the birding festival keynote banquet will take place at the Elks Lodge, with featured speakers and topics on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening of the event at the Cortez Cultural Center.
The festival has drawn international visitors and visitors from 35 states.
“We have a very loyal following,” Cherbak said. “The tours are very popular when we have online registration open up. People are waiting in the queue to get in and tours fill up very fast.”
Last year was the first year back after COVID, and 150 participants took part in the festival. In 2019, there were 200 participants, and Cherbak said she hopes it grows back to that number.
The festival proceeds will go toward the Cortez Cultural Center, and all the tours and evening lectures will take place there. The keynote banquet at the Elks Lodge is the only part of the festival that will not start or be hosted at the Cortez Cultural Center.
Cherbak, who has been involved in the festival since 2010, said her favorite part is for people to be introduced to the area and the birds in the area.
“It’s a fun opportunity to meet people and introduce them to our area,” she said. “It’s such a unique event. It gets people outdoors and interacting with a lot of people with common interests. It’s a great way to support the cultural center. It’s a lot of fun.”
Registration will open in early March, and more information can be found on the festival’s website or https://bit.ly/3OqirNs.
