Grand Junction's National Owl Record Runs on Backyard Nest Boxes
November 12, 2026
November 12, 2026
Before 5 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2022, more than 40 Grand Valley Audubon Society volunteers drove out on 17 routes across the valley. At each of their stops, they got out of the car into the cold and played a recording of a small owl's call from a phone. Fifty-three Western Screech-Owls answered. Some flew in to check out the sound, and others trilled back from a distance.
A second group of 10 volunteers spent the day with cameras on long poles. They checked more than 200 nest boxes and found 46 more owls inside. Two more owls answered calls that evening, which brought the day's total to 101. Nic Korte, who leads the society's owl project, told The Daily Sentinel, in a story republished by Grand Valley Audubon, that it was a national record for Western Screech-Owls counted in a single day.
The Grand Valley's lead in this one species tells you as much about the people here as about the birds. Most of the owls are found where neighbors agreed to put up a box.
On Oct. 29, 2026, Audubon published its national high counts for the 126th Christmas Bird Count, which ran from Dec. 14, 2025, to Jan. 5, 2026. That report lists 91 Western Screech-Owls at Grand Junction, the highest count of the species anywhere in the country. The 125th count report, for the season that ended in January 2025, also lists Grand Junction first with 91.
A national high count is a big deal. In the 126th season alone, U.S. counts recorded 664 species, and any one count circle can top the country in a species only by finding more of that bird in one day than every other circle. After the 2022 count, Korte said Grand Junction would almost certainly finish first in the world for this owl for the 12th time in 13 years. He added, "No one in the United States has come to close to us for years."
Over the past decade, the local tallies look like this:
| Count season | Western Screech-Owls counted | Source |
|---|---|---|
| December 2014 | 99 | The Daily Sentinel |
| December 2021 | About 70 | The Daily Sentinel, via Grand Valley Audubon |
| December 2022 | 101 | The Daily Sentinel, via Grand Valley Audubon |
| 2024–25 season | 91, national high | Audubon, 125th count |
| 2025–26 season | 91, national high | Audubon, 126th count |
The totals rise and fall from year to year, but Grand Junction keeps coming out on top. The next sections explain where the owls come from.
A Western Screech-Owl weighs about 5 ounces and is roughly the size of a soup can, according to Korte. The name is misleading, because this owl doesn't screech. Its call is a soft trill that Korte describes as a "bouncing ball trill."
These owls nest in tree cavities. In the Grand Valley, many of those cavities were in large old cottonwoods that have been cut down over the years. Korte told The Daily Sentinel in 2021 that the nest boxes became necessary because of that loss. In the 2022 coverage, he said owl numbers are falling nationally as urban growth spreads and old trees are trimmed or removed.
The boxes are the answer. Volunteers build them, and at the time of the 2021 article about 200 were spread around the valley. Korte gave credit to the groups that allow boxes on their land: the City of Grand Junction, Mesa County, District 51 schools, housing subdivisions, local canal companies, and private landowners. "If it wasn't for our boxes they wouldn't have a place to be in a lot of the valley," he said.
The 2022 numbers show how much the boxes matter. More than 70% of the owls counted that December were in or near a nest box.
The count area is fixed. Each Christmas Bird Count covers a circle 15 miles across, and the Grand Junction circle is centered at 24 and H roads. Grand Valley Audubon splits the circle into areas, each with its own sign-up. Last season's list included the following:
Each area leader keeps the list of participants and the bird tallies, then passes them to the compiler, Janet Gallenstein. On count day, the owl search runs in three steps:
Korte has been careful not to overstate what the numbers mean. After the record 2022 count, he said he believes the owls are still declining locally. "But we're counting more because we're getting better at it," he told The Daily Sentinel in the same 2022 story. The high count shows how thoroughly the valley searches, and it also shows how many of the owls depend on boxes people put up.
Two of the count areas are named for the Redlands, and two more cover the Monument side next to it. The owls in these areas live close to people's homes.
During the 2021 count, one of Korte's stops was a nest box at a home in the Redlands. A Daily Sentinel story, republished by Grand Valley Audubon, reported that the longtime homeowner sees the owls often and remembered a time when that part of the Redlands had more owls than anywhere else in the valley.
In the same article, Korte said one of the things he enjoys most about the project is getting to know the residents who give the owls a safe place to live. Grand Valley Audubon calls the project unique in the United States, and Korte has led it as the society's conservation chairman. The Daily Sentinel reported that the Colorado Field Ornithologists gave him a Lifetime Achievement award at their 2025 convention.
Every count circle picks one day between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5 for its count, so the next Grand Junction count will fall inside that window. Volunteers sign up through Grand Valley Audubon for a specific count area, so anyone who wants to search close to home can ask for Redlands East, Redlands West, or Connected Lakes. Audubon's national Christmas Bird Count page also explains how to count birds at a home feeder and has a Circle Finder for locating count circles.
New to birding? Grand Valley Audubon has a beginner walk on the Redlands side of the river a few days before the count window opens.
The Connected Lakes walk notes that more than a dozen kinds of ducks spend the winter here. Colorado Parks and Wildlife lists the Connected Lakes section as open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with trails and fishing piers along the ponds.
Grand Valley Audubon lists its Western Screech-Owl project among its volunteer opportunities, along with bird counts and monitoring. To ask about helping or hosting a box, contact the society at [email protected].
For decades, the Grand Valley's owl numbers have depended on neighbors who say yes to a box and on volunteers who head out before dawn in December to count. If an old cottonwood or an owl box is part of why you love your Redlands yard, I'd be glad to hear about it. Michelle Ritter has spent a career in the Grand Valley, and when you're ready to talk about your home, I'm here for that conversation too. Let's connect.
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