North Star Natural Preserve

Background | Criteria | Northwest Colorado | Northeast Colorado
Southwest Colorado | Southeast Colorado

North Star Nature Preserve
Pitkin County

Size: 175 acres

Elevation: 8000 feet

Habitats: Wetlands, high elevation riparian, open water, aspen, mixed conifer, sagebrush shrubland

Ownership: Municipal (Pitkin County)

Land Use: Primary – nature and wildlife conservation

Secondary – recreation/tourism, research, fishing

IBA Criteria: 2, 3, 4

Site description

Location: The North Star Nature Preserve is located just east of the city of Aspen. Limited housing borders the property on the east, west and south, and U.S. Forest Service property borders on the south.

Vegetative/natural features: The site is bisected by the Roaring Fork River, and contains high altitude wetlands and riparian areas. Significant features include willows and cottonwoods in old oxbows, a sedge marsh, wet meadows, dry meadows, aspen and coniferous forest, and open Gambel oak with Douglas-fir.

Ornithological Importance

The site’s diversity of habitat types in a relatively undeveloped area provide feeding, shelter, and breeding grounds for resident species and neotropical migrants. There is a heron rookery located to the east, from which herons frequently come to the site to feed.

Breeding species:	Average #	Maximum #
Red-winged Blackbird	500
Violet-green Swallow	100’s
Red-naped Sapsucker	15
Cordilleran Flycatcher	30
MacGillivray’s Warbler	30
Western Tanager	25
Northern Goshawk	1 pair
Red-tailed Hawk	1 pair
Virginia Rail	20 pairs
Sora	30 pairs
Yellow Warbler	25 pairs
Song Sparrow	50 pairs
Fox Sparrow	30 pairs
Great Blue Heron	5 pairs
Lincoln Sparrow	30 pairs
Green-tailed Towhee	15 pairs
Belted Kingfisher	8 pairs
Orange-crowned Warbler	25 pairs

Research and educational activities: Preserve managers hold educational classes for students and adults at the site.

Conservation/Management Issues

Serious threats:
1. invasive/non-native plants (thistle, toadflax, oxeye daisy).

Minor threats:
1. cowbird parasitism;
2. disturbance to birds and habitat by recreational use.

Efforts to address threats:
Preserve managers have begun hand-pulling of invasive plants.

Management details:
Pitkin County acquired the site in the late 1970s, with the help of The Nature Conservancy. Since that time, the site has recovered from the effects of the hay ranching and grazing that took place during the 1950s and 1960s.

Development pressures in Pitkin County are intense. Use by commercial kayakers and paragliders is active on 15% of the site, and threatens to create a park out of a nature preserve.