Author: Amy Law
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Birds of the Bitter Cold
Temperature records fell throughout the central United States yesterday, as a cold front moved down from Canada. We dropped to -2oF, and we aren’t expected to warm up much before the weekend. We always think of our feathered friends on days like this, so I went out early to clean off the feeders. I had…
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My Bad … It’s a Northern Shrike After All
Last night we got a wonderful photo of a shrike. In my excitement about identifying it, I got the website windows mixed up. Upon further review, this is a Northern Shrike, not a Logger head. https://amylawscigeek.com/2022/01/26/loggerhead-shrike/ So what’s the difference? Well, everything I claimed in my previous post was for a Loggerhead is really for…
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Loggerhead — OOOPS — Northern Shrike
Author’s Note — after writing this post last night, I realized that I got the two browser windows confused, and wrongly identified the bird we saw as a Loggerhead, when it was actually a Northern Shrike. I have struck out the wrong name where appropriate. My next post compares the two birds. (https://amylawscigeek.com/2022/01/27/my-bad-its-a-northern-shrike-after-all/) Like so…
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Owl Serenade
My husband nudged me awake last night at 3:30. “Did you hear that?” My sleep groggy brain struggled to consciousness. “What? A bugler? The fire alarm? Incoming missiles?” “No…there!” And I heard it: “Whoo HOO hoo oo! Whoo HOO hoo oo!” And the response in a different tone, from a slightly different direction: “Whoo HOO…
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110 Mile-per-hour Winds Drive Fire
Updated 12/31/2021 9:56 Winds as high as 110 miles per hour pushed a grass fire far faster than a car can drive, jumping the length of a football field in seconds yesterday in the Front Range towns of Superior and Louisville. Up to 600 homes have been destroyed, but as of this writing, no fatalities…
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Snow Pack Improves During December 2021
The good news at the end of a year otherwise filled with less than inspiring events is that the snow pack across the West has improved dramatically in the month of December. If you have been following my blog for a long time, you might have noticed my obsession with snow pack. Snow pack is…
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Snow, finally?
A much anticipated storm brought snow to the Denver area today. It remains to be seen whether or not it will produce the one half inch required at Denver International Airport to be recorded as our official first snow of the season. But here is the storm track anticipated by the National Weather Service: REALLY???!!!…
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Wildlife Still Active
First, a correction to my last post: Although we got a solid inch of snow, Denver proper did not. We are 800 feet higher than Denver, and frequently get precipitation when they don’t. The take-home? Denver has blown past the previous record for latest snow fall, with no relief in sight. As of November 30,…
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Latest First Snow On Record
We got our first snow last night. It wasn’t much — exactly an inch as measured on our porch railing. But we were all celebrating. Why? Our last snow was 218 days ago, our fifth longest snow-less stretch. Last night’s snow also marks a new record of latest first snow on record. As somebody I…
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PATTERN RECOGNITION – SEEING WHAT OTHERS DON’T
Because dyslexics use your creative right brains more, that side gets very strong. This strength may let you soak up patterns of things that you see, and processes that you imagine. Dyslexics link ideas together in different ways – instead of following a “logical” step-by-step sequence, you might see a pattern or similarities and likenesses.…
Amy Law, Science Geek 