Pros:
Concrete tees and tons of hole placements, including several alternate and tournament baskets.
Holes of every distance and shots demanding every type of throw.
Designed as a Disc Golf park.
You can frequently find John Byrd puttering around and he's always down to shoot the breeze, if not throw a round with you.
Wildlife. A family of Golden Eagles inhabits trees on the North border, and I've seen Baldies and several varieties of hawk as well. I've seen Fox, Coyote, and even a Tiger Salamander retrieving a disc from the "lake." I've never encountered a rattlesnake, despite it seeming like prime territory, and do not believe they live here.
Cons:
Weather. In the windswept western suburbs, storms move quick. The Nest is a MASSIVE course, and if you don't pay attention to those sketchy clouds above Boulder, you'll be running half a mile at a full clip trying to protect your iPhone from getting wet.
This course eats discs. Johnny B does his best with the grass, but most of the time it's pretty long. In addition to this, discs here frequently hit and roll up to 60 feet in any direction, regardless of how it was coming down. The result is that even skilled discers who think they know where a 350 ft shot landed might find it 20 minutes and 50 feet later in a sage bush.
Navigation. If you don't know the course, I can see it being tricky. The sheer length of some holes and distance between tee pads can make you question your target. Random bonus tee pads and arbitrary spare baskets probably don't help.
People know about it now (see below).
Other Thoughts:
This is my home course, and I tried not to be biased. But here's my experience with the course I've played the most. I grew up on the nearby westwoods golf course, and in 2005 we stumbled upon this raw, unfinished idea of a disc golf course on a massive and barren piece of desert that the city didn't care about. The appeal for us was to use the secluded parking lot to hook up with our girlfriends and smoke hookah and such. Eventually, however, we purchased discs and decided to learn the game here, which in retrospect toughened us up and helped our game. Playing Bird's Nest was basically committing to a couple hours in scorching heat getting beat up by the course. A course designed by a man with a lot of ambition, few resources and a wicked game. We loved it then and still do.
Although upgrades and expansions were painfully slow, they did indeed happen, and as of 2017, Bird's Nest is a Mecca for tournaments, families, massive groups, etc. While I wholeheartedly support the mainstreaming of disc golf, I can't help what my friends and I are. And what we are now at Bird's Nest are the guys discreetly discussing how to politely play through your family. The guys who, unimpeded, could manipulate this course to fit any time constraint or player skill level. But trying to keep a round fluid while simultaneously playing through less skilled players on every hole is tricky. I've found myself scratching my head after two hour rounds that have somehow stil felt rushed. Bird's Nest now has the funding, attention and equipment needed to set up a quality experience for pretty much anyone now, and John is working hard to make that happen. Now that the public is aware of it, tournaments are being held almost weekly, and the city even boasts about it on its website. This course is an example of disc golf becoming part of Colorado culture and recreation, and I adore that.
But another part of me misses playing 36 holes in 95 degree heat and and only encountering one person the entire time. He had no idea this course existed and just happened to see the sign headed west on 64th.
All changes and bias aside, I highly recommend this course to anyone living in the metro area, and anyone passing through. Bird's Nest is only getting better, and if the price of fame is traffic, I'm cool with that.
12 years later