Description: Self-guiding tour from the Harpers Corner Visitor Center to Echo Park. Echo Park is a sandy beach area at the junction of the Yampa and Green Rivers beneath magnificent sandstone cliffs. Drier slopes and benches typified by sagebrush and piñon/juniper woodlands, moister areas of Douglas fir. Box-elder/willow communities along the river.
Viewing Information: Mule deer are usually visible from the road occasional elk and bighorn sheep. Waterfowl, some shorebirds, and an occasional otter or beaver are seen along the Green and Yampa Rivers; songbirds in riparian zones. Good raptor watching—golden eagles, red-tailed and ferruginous hawks, kestrels, prairie falcons common; goshawks, Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks may also be seen. Watch for peregrine falcons around cliff areas in Echo Park. Cliffs are closed to climbing in spring and summer due to nesting. Watch rocky areas also for cliff and violet-green swallows, canyon and rock wrens. You may see bats in the evening around the campground.
(Excerpted from the Colorado Wildlife Viewing Guide by Mary Taylor Young [Gray], and available through our online store.)
Next: How to Tell Falcons from Hawks and Eagles
(The information contained in this issue of Colorado's Wildlife Company was accurate at the time of original publication. Situations and circumstances described, staff positions, contact information, and dates of some events may have changed in the interim. Present knowledge and understanding of biological and behavioral facts and information may also be different, now, than presented here.)