Following The
Black rosy-finch.
If you’ve spent time at Alta in the winter, you may have spotted flocks of small, dark birds gathering around feeders or moving across the snowy landscape. Among them may be one of our most unique alpine residents—the Black Rosy-Finch. During the breeding season, they occupy some of the highest and most rugged alpine environments in the West, making them challenging to study. When they move to lower elevations during winter, places like Alta provide researchers with an opportunity to get a closer look.
Since 2018, Alta has served as an important research location for the Utah Rosy-Finch Project—a collaborative effort involving wildlife agencies, researchers, conservation organizations and community scientists. As part of the project, three RFID-enabled bird feeders were placed at the top of Collins lift, outside the Town of Alta office and at a private home on Bypass Road—logging more than 11,000 visits from 91 tagged finches.
Together, we’re helping answer some big questions about a very small bird.
Why Study the Black Rosy-Finch?
Alta is home to the rare Black Rosy-Finch and the more common Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. While they often travel in flocks together, their high mountain lifestyles make them the least studies birds in North America.
Over the years, research at Alta has included:
Capturing and banding rosy-finches
Using RFID tags and specialized feeders to identify returning birds
Collecting feathers for scientific analysis
Conducting community bird counts
Installing new technology to track bird movements
Each piece of information helps us better understand how these birds use Alta—and how Alta fits into their much larger world.
Bird Banding at Alta
During winter banding sessions, trained researchers carefully capture rosy-finches and place a small, uniquely numbered band around each bird’s leg. Before releasing the bird, the team collects information such as its species, age, sex and physical condition. The process is carefully managed, and each bird is released back into the wild. That tiny band allows researchers to recognize an individual if it is captured again.
Over multiple winters, these encounters can reveal important information about:
Survival: How many birds return from year to year?
Longevity: How long are individual rosy-finches living?
Site fidelity: Do the same birds return to Alta each winter?
Movement: Are birds showing up at other research locations?
Population trends: How do captures change from one winter to the next?
Banding has also supported newer research. Some birds have received RFID tags that identify them at specially equipped feeders, and during the 2025–26 season, 15 Black Rosy-Finches captured at Alta were fitted with Motus nanotags to help researchers learn more about their movements.
What Can a Feather Tell Us?
One of the project’s biggest questions is surprisingly simple: Where do the Black Rosy-Finches we see at Alta spend their summers?
Researchers found clues in the birds’ feathers. Naturally occurring chemical signatures in feathers vary by geography. By analyzing those signatures, scientists can estimate where a feather grew—and where a bird may have spent its breeding season.
A 2025 study analyzed feathers from 38 Black Rosy-Finches wintering in northern Utah. The results pointed to possible breeding areas across the Mountain West, including:
Central Idaho
Southwestern Montana
Western Wyoming
Utah’s Uinta Mountains
The birds traveled an estimated 428 kilometers—or about 266 miles—between breeding and wintering areas. That means a Black Rosy-Finch visiting Alta in winter may have spent its summer hundreds of miles away.
[IMAGE/MAP: Alta connected to potential breeding areas in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana]
Years of Research at Alta
The long-term nature of this project is especially valuable–each winter provides another opportunity to learn. Some birds are captured for the first time, while others return wearing bands from previous years.
Recent Black Rosy-Finch captures at Alta include:
2022–23: 6 birds (shortened season due to historic snowfall)
2023–24: 8 birds
2024–25: 49 birds
2025–26: 25 birds
Returning birds help researchers better understand migration patterns, winter-site loyalty and how individual rosy-finches use the landscape over time.
A New Way to Follow the Flock
During the 2025–26 season, Rosy-Finch research at Alta entered a new phase. A Motus Wildlife Tracking System receiving station was installed at the U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station in Alta, and researchers equipped 15 Black Rosy-Finches with tiny radio transmitters called nanotags.
Motus is an international network of automated radio receivers that can detect tagged birds and other small animals as they move across the landscape. If one of Alta’s tagged birds passes within range of another Motus station, researchers may be able to record its movement.
The Alta receiver continued detecting tagged birds through summer 2026. As of the latest project update, birds tagged at Alta had not yet been detected at another Motus station. For now, we’re still waiting to see where their journeys take them.
Why This Research Matters to Alta
A bird we see outside at the top of the Collins lift in January may spend its summer in the Uintas—or hundreds of miles away in Montana. Black Rosy-Finches remind us that Alta is part of an ecosystem extending far beyond the boundaries of the ski area
Through partnerships and long-term monitoring, we can better understand how Rosy-Finches use these mountains and how changes to alpine environments may affect them in the future.
The project combines several approaches:
Bird bands help identify individual birds
RFID tags record when birds return to equipped feeders
Community surveys help monitor populations
Feather analysis provides clues about where birds spend their summers
Motus nanotags give researchers a new tool for tracking movements across the landscape
Together, these tools are filling in the gaps in what we know about one of Alta’s most fascinating winter visitors.
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