Category: Colorado Mileposts
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Cedar Waxwings
Out for a walk with the dogs today, I saw robin-sized grey birds with subtle yellow bellies flitting from branch to branch in a crabapple tree, eating the shriveled fruit. As I looked closer at them, I saw that they had crests! Birds of Pennsylvania Cedar waxwings! I’ve only ever seen these strikingly beautiful birds…
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Cold Weather Birds
We woke up to 12o F (-11o C) in central Colorado — we have yet to have a significant snowfall in the foothills west of Denver. It’s been a little odd to see so many different types of winter birds coming to the feeder without snow. But they are coming! House sparrows. House sparrows were…
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Thanksgiving Sunset
A little late, but here is a view of the sunset on Thanksgiving evening. Hope you had a beautiful Thanksgiving, and will have a wonderful Christmas.
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NASA Computer Simulation Shows 2017 Hurricane Tracks
This computer simulation from NASA shows just how interconnected the world is. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=12772&button=recent The computer simulation runs from August 1 through November 1, 2017. It follows hurricanes that tracked over the Atlantic Ocean this fall, letting you see how dust from the Sahara ends up in Miami, and smoke from the wildfires in California and…
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Painted Ladies Part Two
After seeing thousands of painted lady butterflies a couple of weeks ago, I thought they were done for the season.Painted Ladies migrate across North America! Wrong! There are still so many migrating through the Denver area, that, when they fly a bit higher, they are visible on radar! How cool is that?
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Pika Patrol, Part Two
My husband, my son, his girlfriend and I went up to my Pika Patrol (Pika Patrol, Part One) site over the weekend. After thrashing about a bit learning how to use the GPS, we found the appointed talus slope. Located on the north shore of Grand Lake just south of Rocky Mountain National Park, researchers…
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Painted Ladies migrate across North America!
This morning, my husband and I stepped out of our house to walk our dogs, and were mobbed by Painted Lady butterflies! There were dozens in our yard, sipping nectar from sunflowers and oregano. As we walked through the neighborhood, the numbers increased. They were everywhere. Delightful! Painted ladies are on every continent except Australia…
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Colorado River Canoe
One of the things that I love about Colorado is that you can drive a few hours in any direction, and be in an entirely different environment. Normally, I spend a lot of time in the high country. But last week my husband and I traveled to Grand Junction, in the western part of Colorado,…
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Alpine Flowers
A couple of years ago, when I was giving presentations for my book (A Natural History of Trail Ridge Road: Rocky Mountain National Park’s Highway to the Sky), a member of the audience asked me where she could find wildflowers in the alpine tundra. I was a little nonplussed, because you can find wildflowers in…
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Pika Patrol, Part One
What do you do when you are forced out of your home? How do you find another place to live, when the sites you need are already full? American Pika, small rodent-like rabbit relatives who live in the alpine tundra of the Rocky Mountains, are facing this problem as warmer temperatures force them ever higher.…
Amy Law, Science Geek 