Denver-Boulder Metro Area: Birds
This guide contains birds that can be found in the Denver-Boulder Metro Area, including Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson Counties.
Least Tern
The Least Tern (Sternula antillarum, formerly Sterna antillarum) is a species of tern that breeds in North America and locally in northern South America. It is closely related to, and was formerly often considered conspecific with, the Little Tern of the Old World. Other close relatives include the Yellow-billed Tern and Peruvian Tern, both from South America.
Caspian Tern
The Caspian Tern (Hydroprogne caspia, formerly Sterna caspia;syn. Hydroprogne tschegrava, Helopus caspius) is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no subspecies accepted either. In New Zealand it is also known by the Maori name Taranui.
Royal Tern
The royal tern (Thalasseus maximus) is a tern in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek Thalasseus, "fisherman", from thalassa, "sea". The specific maximus is Latin for '"greatest".
Forster's Tern
The Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri) is a member of the tern family Sternidae. It breeds inland in North America and winters south to the Caribbean and northern South America.
Common Tern
The Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migratory, wintering in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. Breeding adults have light grey upperparts, white to very light grey underparts, a ...more ↓
Black Tern
The black tern (Chlidonias niger or Chlidonias nigra) is a small tern generally found in or near inland water in Europe and North America. As its name suggests, it has predominantly dark plumage. In some lights it can appear blue in the breeding season, hence the old English name "blue darr". The scientific name means "like a swallow".
Little Gull
The Little Gull (Hydrocoloeus minutus or Larus minutus), is a small gull which breeds in northern Europe and Asia. It also has small colonies in parts of southern Canada. It is migratory, wintering on coasts in western Europe, the Mediterranean and (in small numbers) the northeast USA; in recent years non-breeding birds have summered in western Europe in increasing ...more ↓
California Gull
The California Gull (Larus californicus) is a medium-sized gull, smaller on average than the Herring Gull but larger on average than the Ring-billed Gull, though may overlap in size greatly with both.
Mew Gull
The common gull (Larus canus) is a medium-sized gull which breeds in northern Asia, northern Europe and northwestern North America. The North American subspecies is commonly referred to as the mew gull, although that name is also used by some authorities for the whole species. It migrates further south in winter. There are differing accounts as to how the species acquired ...more ↓
Lesser Black-backed Gull
The lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus) is a large gull that breeds on the Atlantic coasts of Europe. It is migratory, wintering from the British Isles south to West Africa. It is a regular winter visitor to the east coast of North America, probably from the breeding population in Iceland.
Glaucous-winged Gull
The glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) is a large, white-headed gull. The genus name is from Latin Larus which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific glaucescens is New Latin for "glaucous" from the Ancient Greek, glaukos. English "Glaucous" denotes a bluish-green or grey colour.
Iceland Gull
The Iceland Gull (Larus glaucoides) is a large gull which breeds in the Arctic regions of Canada and Greenland, but not Iceland, where it is only seen in the winter. It is migratory, wintering from in the North Atlantic as far south as the British Isles and northernmost states of the eastern USA, as well as in the interior of North America as far west as the western Great Lakes. ...more ↓
Glaucous Gull
The Glaucous Gull (Larus hyperboreus) is a large gull which breeds in the Arctic regions of the northern hemisphere and the Atlantic coasts of Europe. It is migratory, wintering from in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans as far south as the British Isles and northernmost states of the USA, also on the Great Lakes. A few birds sometimes reach the southern USA and ...more ↓
Great Black-backed Gull
Most foods are swallowed whole, including most fish and even other gulls. When foods are too large to be swallowed at once, they will sometimes be shaken in the bill until they fall apart into pieces. Like some other gulls, when capturing molluscs or other hard-surfaced foods such as eggs, they will fly into the air with it and drop it on rocks or hard earth to crack it open. Alternate foods, ...more ↓
Western Gull
The western gull (Larus occidentalis) is a large white-headed gull that lives on the west coast of North America. It was previously considered conspecific with the yellow-footed gull (Larus livens) of the Gulf of California. The western gull ranges from British Columbia, Canada to Baja California, Mexico, and, because of its convenient colonies on the coast of California, ...more ↓
Slaty-backed Gull
The slaty-backed gull (Larus schistisagus) is a large white-headed gull that breeds on the western coast of Alaska but travels widely during nonbreeding seasons. It is similar in appearance to the western gull and the glaucous-winged gull. Another alternate name is Pacific gull, though this also applies to a southern hemisphere species, Larus pacificus. Claims have ...more ↓
Black-legged Kittiwake
The black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) is a seabird species in the gull family Laridae.
Ross's Gull
The Ross's gull (Rhodostethia rosea) is a small gull, the only species in its genus, although it has been suggested it should be moved to the genus Hydrocoloeus, which otherwise only includes the little gull. This bird is named after the British explorer James Clark Ross. Its breeding grounds were first discovered in 1905 by Sergei Aleksandrovich Buturlin near village of ...more ↓
Sabine's Gull
The Sabine's Gull (Xema sabini), also known as the Fork-tailed gull or Xeme, is a small gull. Its generic placement is disputed; some authors treat it as the sole species in the genus Xema as Xema sabini, while others retain it in the genus Larus as Larus sabini. It breeds in the Arctic and has a circumpolar distribution ...more ↓
Laughing Gull
The Laughing Gull (Leucophaeus atricilla) is a medium-sized gull of North and South America. It breeds on the Atlantic coast of North America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. Northernmost populations migrate further south in winter, and this species occurs as a rare vagrant to western Europe. (There was an influx into North-west Europe in late October 2005 when at ...more ↓
