The 2025 Pikes Peak Birding & Nature Festival featured birds are the Pygmy, Red-breasted, and White-breasted Nuthatch,

The 2025 festival T-shirt art has been created from a watercolor and ink painting by festival artist, Mary Wilson. Mary is a local artist who has been painting birds since her high school years. The painting “Nuthatch Trifecta”, is a mixed media painting utilizing both the softness of watercolor and the starkness of ink. Rather than painting in watercolors alone, Mary went back in after the watercolor paint had finished drying and strategically used ink outlining for a more graphic finished look.

This effect is intended to give the illusion of looking at the Nuthatches through a pair of binoculars, where the foreground details are sharp and clear in front of a more blurred background. The background features rock formations from Garden of the Gods and the summit of Pikes Peak (both places Mary spends a lot of her days in training for the Pikes Peak Ascent). Though no specific reference photo was used, she drew upon her experiences of coming across the three Nuthatch species simultaneously while spending time studying owls in the Manitou Experimental forest.

Mary was most inspired to paint three Nuthatches together because she is the oldest of a set of triplets and subsequently possesses an inherent belief that good things come in threes. Pygmy Nuthatches (Sitta pygmaea) are the smallest of the three types of Nuthatches found locally. Their buffy-white underparts are fluffed up under a crisp brown head, slate-gray back, and sharp, straight bill. Look for these little hyperactive bundles gathered together in family groups in open forests of older ponderosa pines across the West.

Red-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta canadensis) are the next largest species of the local Nuthatches. They are small, compact birds with long, pointed bills often framed by an explosive clump of mustache-like feathers. Red-breasted Nuthatches have very short tails and almost no neck; the body is plum or barrel-chested, and the short wings are very broad. They are blue-gray birds with a black cap white eye stripe and rusty underbellies, often found in coniferous habitat.

The largest species of Nuthatches in Colorado, the White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis), has a large head and almost no neck with a short tail and a long, narrow bill. White-breasted Nuthatches have a gray-blue back like the Red-breasted Nuthatches but have a frosty white face and underparts instead of a rusty color. The black or gray cap and neck can sometimes look like the bird is wearing a hood. White-breasted Nuthatches are most often found in mated pairs in deciduous stands of woodland forests.

Mary’s artwork graces the back of the 2025 festival T-shirt, with the Pikes Peak Birding & Nature Festival logo on the front. 

The 2025 festival T-shirt must be ordered by Sunday, 27 April through the festival registration form online. No T-shirt orders can be accepted after this date.

At Saturday evening’s “Birds Brews & Bites” event, Mary’s framed, original artwork “Nuthatch Trifecta” is being auctioned as a fundraiser for the 2026 Festival. The framed (15.5 in. x 19.5 in.) watercolor painting is available for viewing now and throughout the festival at the Fountain Creek Nature Center.

The 2025 T-shirt has the festival artwork on the back with the festival logo on the front. Both short-sleeved and long-sleeved shirts are available.

The short-sleeved t-shirt cost is $20 and the long-sleeved t-shirt cost is $25. We have sizes S – XXXL and you will order your shirt when you register. There may be extra shirts available after the festival ends but order yours when you register to make sure you can own one.

This year we will also be selling khaki toned baseball caps featuring the Pikes Peak Birding and Nature Festival logo! There is a limited quantity so please make sure to order yours during registration for $20.