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.

White Ibis

The American white ibis (Eudocimus albus) is a species of bird in the ibis family, Threskiornithidae. It is found from Virginia via the Gulf Coast of the United States south through most of the coastal New World tropics. This particular ibis is a medium-sized bird with an overall white plumage, bright red-orange down-curved bill and long legs, and black wing tips that are ...more ↓

White-faced Ibis

The White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) is a wading bird in the ibis family Threskiornithidae.

Glossy Ibis

The glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) is a wading bird in the ibis family Threskiornithidae. The scientific name derives from Ancient Greek plegados and Latin, falcis, both meaning "sickle" and referring to the distinctive shape of the bill.

American White Pelican

The American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) is a large aquatic bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Central America and South America, in winter.

Brown Pelican

The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is a North American bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae. It is one of three pelican species found in the Americas and one of only two that feeds by diving in water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia to the mouth of the Amazon River, and along the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to northern Chile, including the ...more ↓

Least Bittern

The least bittern (Ixobrychus exilis) is a small heron, the smallest member of the family Ardeidae found in the Americas.

American Bittern

The American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus) is a species of wading bird in the heron family of the Pelican order of bird. It has a Nearctic distribution, breeding in Canada and the northern and central parts of the United States, and wintering in the southern US Gulf Coast states, all of Florida into the Everglades, the Caribbean islands and parts of Central America.

Little Blue Heron

The Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea) is a small heron. It breeds from the Gulf states of the USA, through Central America and the Caribbean south to Peru and Uruguay. It is a resident breeder in most of its range, but some northern breeders migrate to the southeastern USA or beyond in winter. There is post-breeding dispersal to well north of the nesting range, as far as the ...more ↓

Snowy Egret

The snowy egret (Egretta thula) is a small white heron. The genus name comes from the Provençal French for the little egret Aigrette, a diminutive of Aigron," heron". The species name thula is the Araucano for the Black-necked Swan, applied to this species in error by Chilean naturalist Juan Ignacio Molina in 1782.

Tricolored Heron

The tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor), formerly known in North America as the Louisiana heron, is a small heron. It is a resident breeder from the Gulf states of the United States and northern Mexico south through Central America and the Caribbean to central Brazil and Peru. There is some post-breeding dispersal to well north of the nesting range.

Great Egret

The great egret (Ardea alba), also known as the common egret, large egret or (in the Old World) great white heron, is a large, widely distributed egret, with four subspecies found in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and southern Europe. Distributed across most of the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the world. It builds tree nests in colonies close to ...more ↓

Great Blue Heron

The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found only in the Caribbean ...more ↓

Black-crowned Night Heron

The Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), commonly abbreviated to just Night Heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, except in the coldest regions and Australasia (where it is replaced by the closely related Rufous Night Heron, with which it has hybridized in the area of contact).

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

The Yellow-crowned Night Heron (Nyctanassa violacea, formerly placed in the genus Nycticorax), also called the American Night Heron or squawk, is a fairly small heron. It is found throughout a large part of the Americas, especially (but not exclusively) in warmer coastal regions; an example occurrence is the Petenes mangroves of the Yucatan.

Cattle Egret

The cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) is a cosmopolitan species of heron (family Ardeidae) found in the tropics, subtropics and warm temperate zones. It is the only member of the monotypic genus Bubulcus, although some authorities regard its two subspecies as full species, the western cattle egret and the eastern cattle egret. Despite the similarities in ...more ↓

Green Heron

The Green Heron (Butorides virescens) is a small heron of North and Central America. It was long considered conspecific with its sister species the Striated Heron (Butorides striata), and together they were called "Green-backed Heron". Birds of the nominate subspecies (no matter which taxonomic arrangement is preferred) are extremely rare vagrants to western Europe; ...more ↓

Edited by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)