Category: Science Geek Blog
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2024 Pika Patrol
If it’s fall, it must be time to look for pika! As always, we are going out as part of the Colorado Pika Project, a Citizen Science project monitoring pika throughout the Colorado mountains. This is the meadow (11,598 feet) where we start our search for pika. They live in the rocks directly in front…
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Happy Dog Day!
From all of my dogs, past and present, to all of yours! Sasha Kurama Darwin Tegan and Zoe
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Sleeping Bees
Several years ago, I saw a charming photograph of two tiny bees curled up together, asleep, in a flower. Ever since then, I have been on a quest to photograph sleeping bees myself. (https://amylawscigeek.com/2021/08/08/sleeping-bees/) I’m not very good at identifying bees, but I think this is a honey bee. The reason I hesitate is because…
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Angry Cooper’s Hawk
My husband and I were working in the yard yesterday and heard what we thought was Northern flicker calling as it flew overhead. Reflexively glancing up to see the bird, I was startled to see not a flicker, but a hawk or very large falcon slicing through the sky, crying as it did so. Whipping…
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Update on the Northern Flicker Nest …
Several weeks ago, I posted some of my favorite nature photographs in honor Nature Photography Week https://amylawscigeek.com/2024/06/10/nature-photography-week-day-2/, including one of a Red-shafted Northern Flicker poking it’s head out of a hole in an crabapple tree. In that post, I said that the tree was often considered for a nest by Flickers, but never used, because…
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More Nature Photography …
Larkspur in a the foothills west of Denver, Colorado. Desert bighorn sheep along the Colorado River west of Grand Junction, Colorado.
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Nature Photography Week Day 2
Pasque flower seen on the trail early one spring. I love how the fuzzy hairs make it seem to glow! This female Northern Flicker is checking out a hole excavated in a crab apple tree. Every spring flickers covet this hole. And every spring they eventually nest someplace else — this site is about four…
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Happy Nature Photography Week!
In honor of nature photography week, here are some of my favorites from over the years. This plump little bird is a slate-colored of a dark-eyed junco, often commonly called a snow-bird. It came to our feeder New Year’s day last year, rummaging in the snow for seeds the other birds might have dropped from…
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Red-tailed Hawk in the Backyard
In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed several instances of a hawk flying fast and low through our back yard. I had assumed it was an accipitor — either a Cooper’s or a sharp-shinned hawk that specializes in hunting in open forests like back yards. But while my husband and I were out working in…
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Goldfinches in the Backyard — sunshine on the wing!
I saw my first American Goldfinch thirty years ago as I was walking through a park. At first glance, I thought somebody’s parakeet had escaped. They are that bright a yellow. For the next few years, I saw them occasionally in our backyard. But they have been absent for many years. But to my delight,…
Amy Law, Science Geek 