Tag: nature
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Banded Garden Spider
Trigger Alert: We’re talking about spiders in this post. Pictures, too. But it is a very gentle spider. The spider in question is a banded garden spider in our raspberry patch. It showed up in late July (unfortunately, my camera card with those photos on it became corrupted), and my husband and I have been…
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2024 Pika Patrol, Part 2
After our pika hike south of Berthoud Pass last month, my husband and I did our second pika site for the Denver Zoo’s Pika Project last week, climbing up Halfmoon Creek on the southwest side of Mount Massive. We went up to the site a day early because rain, and at the higher altitudes, snow…
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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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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,…
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Cold wet weather forces birds to feeder
The last week has been cold and wet here along the Front Range. A bedraggled, while still handsome, male lazuli bunting landed on our feeder for a few moments. Male Bullocks Oriel dropped in, then almost immediately flew on. I usually see these birds in the foothills just west of my house, so he probably…
Amy Law, Science Geek 