2026 Audubon Conservation Ranching Bird Monitoring Results in the Rockies

Audubon Rockies and the skilled team of wildlife biologists from Precision Wildlife Resources hit the road in 2026 for another year of avian monitoring on ranches that have earned Audubon’s Bird-Friendly Land Certification. Certified through the Audubon Conservation Ranching program, these cattle and bison ranches provide high-quality habitat for birds and other wildlife in the Rockies. Annual surveys on these working lands help Audubon ecologists, ranchers, and conservation partners better understand how birds use these habitats, which informs grazing and habitat management decisions to support these species.  

This year, the crew covered an impressive 548,463 acres across 12 ranches in the Rockies, completing all 46 planned transects, sampling 493 survey points. That is a lot of land, a lot of windshield time, and a lot of birds! From sagebrush flats and wide-open grasslands to cottonwood bottoms and pinyon-juniper country, the team crisscrossed the landscape looking—and listening—for our feathered ranch residents. In total, approximately 8,000 birds and 136 species were detected, proving once again that if you build and maintain good habitat, the birds will show up for the party. 

And what a guest list it was! The 2026 surveys documented an impressive array of grassland and rangeland birds, including Western Meadowlarks, Brewer’s Sparrows, Vesper Sparrows, Lark Buntings, Grasshopper Sparrows, Cassin’s Sparrows, Sagebrush Sparrows, Horned Larks, and Lark Sparrows. These birds are among the true characters of the western rangelands, and their presence is an important reminder that working ranches can provide crucial habitat for birds while continuing to produce food and support rural communities. The surveys also picked up an impressive assortment of woodland, riparian, wetland, and migratory species, showing just how much habitat diversity can be packed into these working landscapes.  

The group also detected several standout species for the 2026 list, including Greater Sage-Grouse, Pinyon Jays, Burrowing Owls, Ferruginous Hawks, Gray Vireos, Long-billed Curlews, Upland Sandpipers, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Trumpeter Swans, White-faced Ibises, Scott’s Orioles, Virginia’s Warblers, Black-throated Gray Warblers, Clark’s Nutcrackers, and Yellow-headed Blackbirds. A few of these species are not what you would expect to see around every bend in the ranch road in the Rockies, making their detection particularly exciting. While the team may not have stumbled across every feathered unicorn on our wish lists this year, the 2026 surveys produced plenty of species worth celebrating—and enough birds to show that these privately owned and managed lands provide critically important habitat for many avian species. 

Every bird counted, and every habitat surveyed, adds another piece to an increasingly valuable long-term dataset. Years of monitoring data, analyzed by Audubon range ecologists, help ranchers make informed decisions about their Habitat Management Plans, adapting their bird-friendly grazing practices to better support the species seen on these working lands. None of this work would happen without the ranchers managing these lands every day, the biologists willing to get up before sunrise and drive seemingly endless miles of ranch roads, and everyone identifying birds by just a few notes. 

Through regular bird monitoring on more than 160 certified farms and ranches across 4.7 million acres in the United States, the Audubon Conservation Ranching program continues to demonstrate that healthy working lands can be productive for people and provide high-quality habitat for birds. In 2026, the birds once again gave us plenty of reasons to keep watching. 

For more information about the Audubon Conservation Ranching program in the Rockies, please contact Dusty Downey at Dusty.Downey@Audubon.org. For national program information, contact ConservationRanching@Audubon.org.  

About Audubon Conservation Ranching  

Audubon Conservation Ranching partners with ranchers to sustain healthy grasslands, abundant birdlife, and resilient rural communities. Through our bird-friendly land certification and science-based approach, we empower land stewards to enhance habitat, improve soil health and water quality, and strengthen the connection between conservation and ranching. By purchasing products from Audubon Certified Bird-Friendly Land, consumers become conservationists, helping protect America’s grasslands and the birds, wildlife, and people that depend on them. For more information, visit www.audubon.org/ranching.