Category: Colorado Mileposts
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Nuthatches
We’ve had lots of charming visitors to our birdfeeders over the winter, including both red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches. This is a male red-breasted nuthatch. As with just about every bird species, the males are more distinct in their plumage. Actually in nuthatches, the difference is not so dramatic — his head is capped with black…
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Welcome to the First Day of Spring, 2020
Four inches of snow, two more expected tonight. Happy first day of Spring, 2020!
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Chickadees checking out a home.
I went out to the garden yesterday to see when I could start taking my frustrations out on it planting my spring vegetables in it. As I walked up to the garden, though, I saw movement in one of the trees on the edge of it. This little gourd birdhouse blew out of the tree…
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Spring is Coming — Promise
It has been a long cold hard winter along the Front Range of Colorado. We have gotten enough snow in February to wipe out the incipient drought we were headed into, which is a good thing. But it came at the cost of a snowstorm every couple of days. That was hard. We’re not out…
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Thanksgiving Bushtits
As we were cooking Thanksgiving dinner this noon, my husband happened to look out our kitchen window at the bird feeders in our back yard. “We have bushtits!” These gregarious little birds move around the neighborhood in a small flock. You know they are passing by their flitting flight, and their cheeping “contact” calls. Bushtits…
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When I could not go to nature, nature kindly came to me.
My life has been busy, hectic and stressful for the last few months. One of my problems has been that I haven’t had time to go find interesting things in nature to share. But a wonderful thing about nature is that if you are patient, and observant, sometimes it comes to you. The dogs were…
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Windy Days
We’ve had some windy days lately. Two days ago (October 20, 2019) we had gusts up to 40 mph (miles per hour) — it was hard to walk in that wind! As we battled the blustery weather while walking the dogs, I happened to look to the west, where I saw lens-shaped clouds hovering over…
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Pika Patrol, 2019 Edition
End of summer. It’s time for Pika Patrol! Due to complications last summer, my husband and I weren’t able to volunteer with Front Range Pika Project last fall. We were determined to make it this year. If you have been following my blog for several years, you might remember that two years ago, in 2017,…
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The Day the Dinosaurs Died
I had always wondered how the dinosaurs died out. I couldn’t understand how just getting hit by an asteroid, or having volcanoes spew out ash could wipe them all out. Then I heard about some research that pinpoints the moment the asteroid hit. That seemed like a promising place to start my research. Scientists still…
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Glitter-glam golden dragonfly
I went out to get the mail during the heatwave last week, and saw sparkles in the air. Then I realized it was a dragonfly. I was sure some six-year-old girl must have dusted it with golden glitter. Further inspection revealed that this was an all natural glitter-glam golden dragonfly, known to scientists as a…
Amy Law, Science Geek 