Climate change wasn't on the public's radar in 1995, when Mary Taylor Young and her husband bought their piece of the wild in the Colorado Rockies. They built a cabin, set up a trail of bluebird nest boxes, and began a nature journal of observations. Her twenty-five year journal, she realized, was a record of climate change, happening not on an Antarctic ice sheet but in their own natural neighborhood and echoed in everyone's backyard.

Mary Taylor Gray, well-known Colorado wildlife author, birder, and "Rocky Mountain News" birdwatching columnist, brings 259 bird species into focus in an accessible, lively field guide for Colorado bird and nature enthusiasts.