LINCOLN COUNTY - The landscape looks slightly barren, but birds of all kinds call the area around the town of Karval home. That includes one bird called the Mountain Plover.
Every year, the shore bird makes its way from the West Coast, over the Rockies, to nest on the short-grass prairie of the Eastern Plains.
“We’re kind of flyover country -- or drive-past country,” Dan Merewether, a rancher in tiny Karval said.
The human population of Karval: about 30.
The Mountain Plover population: well, it’s hard to tell.
People out in Karval have a nickname for the Mountain Plover. They call it, ‘The Ghost of the Prairie,” and for good reason – they’re pretty hard to spot.
“They’re a very hard bird for a lot of serious to see – hard bird for any of us to see,” Merewether said.
Despite its ghostly presence, the Mountain Plover is the foundation of an annual festival marking its 10th year this weekend. The Mountain Plover Festival grew out of a desire of farmers and ranchers to take steps to make sure the bird would not end up threatened or endangered, which would restrict how they could use their land.
“Which doesn’t work very well for farmers and ranchers,” Merewether said.
So, they partnered with conservationists to help protect the Plover habitat on their land.
“They are so essential to preserving the habitat for this and so many other species, it just opens this door to success before listing becomes necessary,” Chris Pague, with the Nature Conservancy in Colorado said.
This weekend, Betty Snow will be attending the festival for the third time.
“It’s birding at its finest,” Snow said. “Just to hear how they’ve come around to realize that they have something worth saving and worth working together to preserve is fascinating and phenomenal.”
The Mountain Plover Festival starts Friday and runs through Sunday. If you'd like more information about it, go to http://www.karval.org/events/105-10thannual
