Category: Colorado Mileposts
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Monarch on Milkweed
Monarch butterflies are beginning visit our milkweed plants, which always makes us happy. Although milkweeds can be a trap for honeybees (https://amylaw.blog/2016/07/17/bees-and-butterflies/), they are required for Monarchs to feed and lay their eggs. Monarchs are in steep decline due to habitat loss and herbicide use, so we try to help them out when we can,…
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Denali National Park and Preserve Bus Tour
My son and his girlfriend are in Fairbanks, Alaska, for the next few years for graduate school. We went up to visit them earlier this month. Fairbanks is only two and a half hours away from Denali National Park. So we all piled in the car and went! There is only one road in Denali,…
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And they’re off!
It’s been almost a month since I last posted about the eagle chicks. A lot’s happened in that time. Before they can live independently, the chicks need to learn how to eat on their own. The parents have brought the chicks a rabbit to eat, but then they left. The chicks have to figure out…
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We all know we’ve been cool and wet, but WOW!
It has been a wet winter and spring where we live. If you are in the continental United States, it’s been cool and wet where you live, too. This has been the wettest 12 months in the history of the United States. (https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Wettest-12-Months-US-History) According to NOAA’s drought monitor (https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/), almost no place in the US…
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Say’s Phoebe at the Feeder
The weather the last few days has been rotten — hovering right around freezing, enough snow to break branches off trees that thought it was spring, for crying out loud, and put out leaves. The cold and wet has driven lots of birds to our feeders, too. This is one I have never recognized in…
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Spring storm brings cold, wet; hummers come to feeder
As a violent spring storm crosses the country, the temperatures along the Front Range of Colorado are hovering in the low 40 degree range, and may dip below freezing tonight, and the drizzle we’ve had all day may turn to snow. Yet hummingbirds have been in the area for a month. These little guys have…
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Prepping for Take-off
The day after I last posted, I noticed new behaviors with the Bald Eagle chicks — they began stretching and flapping their wings… …and they began feeding themselves — just a little at first, but it’s a milestone. As with all new skills, wing-flapping takes a lot of practice, and the willingness to fail. They…
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Birds coming back
We’ve been following the Bald Eagles at Fort St. Vrain power plant closely this spring. But other birds are showing up, too. Spotted Towhees scratch in the soil for insects. But in the spring, you can hear the males calling “tche-tche-tche-cheee!”as they perch on the tips of trees. (https://amylaw.blog/2014/06/02/spotted-towhee/) A pair of black-capped chickadees spent…
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One month old
This is one of the few times I have seen both the chicks go after the same morsel of food. Notice that the unhatched egg is no longer visible. I don’t know if they carried off, or if it just finally got buried in nest material. One of the things that has really surprised me…
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Ten days of growth…
Mama eagle shades the chicks. At this point, they are 9 days old. Up until this day, I hadn’t seen them out of the central depression, where the failed egg remains. But once they started exploring, they rambled all over. I’m a little annoyed, because Mama eagle is in the way of a nice shot…
Amy Law, Science Geek 