Colorado Nature Narratives

With only three days left of 2011, I decided to look back through my Nature Narrative postings. The articles and photos depict many treasures of nature that were discovered throughout the year. I hope you will enjoy this sampler from 2011′s Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, and I wish you a Happy New Year filled with nature’s treasures.

Winter

On this frigid February 1st, the outdoor thermometer reads -9 degrees F. The backyard pond is frozen except for a three-foot circle of open water surrounding our circular pond heater. Overnight, a mix of light snow and sleet sprinkled the icy pond, creating a surface like frosted glass.

The smooth snow covering the front and backyard remains untracked all day. The usually active mammals – rabbits, squirrels, fox, deer and occasional bobcats – are nowhere to be seen. The only wildlife visible on this below zero day are birds, their feathers fluffed to trap extra air for insulation.

Five American Robins fly to the pond in late morning, gathering around the small circle of water. After dipping their beaks into the water, they tilt their heads back to swallow. Soon, they are joined by two Cedar Waxwings, elegant winter visitors to our neighborhood. I note their sleek, gray feathers and back-swept crest. The Waxwings look like they are wearing a black mask and a cape hemmed in red, black and yellow threads.

This brief glimpse of winter’s Cedar Waxwings reminds me of Henry David Thoreau’s quote, “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

Spring

Late this afternoon I took a short walk through our neighborhood park. Except for the sound of the brisk March wind, it was very quiet. As I headed south into the stiff breeze, I zipped up my hooded jacket and cinched the hood tighter. I noted very little bird activity. Perhaps they had sought shelter from the wind, just as I had for most of the day.

When I turned northward, with the wind at my back, I pushed back my hood just in time to catch sight of a majestic bird that seemed to revel in the wind. A Red-tailed Hawk was soaring about 200 yards above me. With its wingtips outstretched, it faced directly into the rushing wind, buoyed by the moving air with no need to flap its wings. The motionless hawk seemed suspended from the blue sky by an invisible thread. Then, with a slight turn, it became an untethered kite and flew out of sight.

Summer

This is one of those autumns when the beauty of the aspen trees is unforgettable. The aspen look like ribbons of gold hemming the steep mountain slopes, tracing the streams that meander down to the valleys. Or, like shining quilts blanketing the hillsides. My favorite description of autumn aspen is by naturalist Ann Zwinger who writes:

Fall comes at its own pace in this grove. Protected by surrounding ridges, these trees may not turn until the first week in October. All in a few days they become fired with blazing light, a torch holding back the winter frosts.

On a Thursday they are still green; on a Sunday, they are golden. The leaves range from citron to copper, saffron to gilt, glowing with light.

Aspen Grove, Autumn 2011

They shower down with each gust of coming winter, buttering the still-blooming lupine, catching the purple asters and the last black-eyed Susans. The mahogany-red rose bushes snag them. The juniper waylays them in needled branches, holding them upright in a card file of autumn….

Purple Asters

The sweet musty smell of fall is…a fragrance of aspen dust and honey and sunshine. The silence is soft and warm and full, between intermittent rustlings of gold tissue-paper, wrapping up the glow of summer.

By Ann Zwinger, from Chapter 5 of her book Beyond the Aspen Grove

Fallen Aspen Leaf

Photos by Melissa J. Walker

On this frigid February 1st, our outdoor thermometer reads -9 degrees F. The backyard pond is frozen except for a three-foot circle of open water surrounding our circular pond heater. Overnight, a mix of light snow and sleet sprinkled the icy pond, creating a surface like frosted glass.

The smooth snow covering the front and backyard remains untracked all day. The usually active mammals – rabbits, squirrels, fox, deer and occasional bobcats – are nowhere to be seen. The only wildlife visible on this below zero day are birds, their feathers fluffed to trap extra air for insulation.

Cedar Waxwing photo by Winston Walker

Five American Robins fly to the pond in late morning, gathering around the small circle of water. After dipping their beaks into the water, they tilt their heads back to swallow. Soon, they are joined by two Cedar Waxwings, elegant winter visitors to our neighborhood. This is the first time I’ve seen them this year. With my binoculars, I note their sleek, gray feathers and back-swept crest. The Waxwings look like they are wearing a black mask and a cape hemmed in red, black and yellow threads.

This brief glimpse of winter’s Cedar Waxwings reminds me of Henry David Thoreau’s quote, “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

Photo Credit: Thanks to my brother Winston Walker for his beautiful photo of the Cedar Waxwing perched on a Crab Apple branch.

Ten months ago in one of my first blogs, I used a quote from my favorite nature writer Ann Zwinger. The year 2010 marked the 40th anniversary of her classic natural history book, Beyond the Aspen Grove, still my favorite. I chose my nature blog’s tagline “always something new to discover” from Ann’s words:

Beginning to know these mountain acres has been to discover a puzzle with a million pieces already set out on a table. Occasionally a few pieces fit together and we gain another awareness of the land’s total pattern of existence, of its intricate interdependencies, enhanced by knowing that the puzzle will never be completed. There will always be something new to discover… (From Chapter 1, Beyond the Aspen Grove)

As I write today, a snowstorm has settled over Colorado Springs and every shape outside my window is now etched in white. With 2010 drawing to a close, I am reflecting on the turning seasons of this year and thought I’d share a few of my favorite Colorado discoveries with you, with homage to Ann Zwinger.

Sandhill Cranes and Sunset, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, late winter

Northern Flicker, late winter

Bobcat with two of her four kittens, late spring

Alpine Tundra Wildflowers: Alpine Forget-Me-Nots and Dwarf Clover on the west slope of Pikes Peak, mid-summer

Golden aspen leaves paint the mountainsides in autumn

Snow-covered Backyard with pond, aspen trees and tall stalks of teasel, early winter

Happy New Year!

Photo Credits: Cranes, Bobcats, Wildflowers, Aspen and Pond by Melissa Walker; Flicker by Les Goss

Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park earlier this week, my friends and I got an early start to beat the afternoon heat and possible thunderstorms. Beginning our hike at 9400 feet at Bear Lake Trailhead, we followed the forested trail up and over a glacial moraine on our way to Lake Helene. We also traversed wildflower meadows where white “cottonballs” of Bistort flowers and Purple Asters danced in the wind. As we approached the subalpine forest at 10,500 feet, the trail crossed very rocky terrain (a scree slope) that seemed bare of wildflowers. But it wasn’t. Somehow, the most beautiful Colorado Blue Columbines had found enough soil to take root and grow toward the bright sunshine. When I returned from my hike, I was eager to read Ann Zwinger’s description of the Colorado Columbine in her book, my favorite, Beyond the Aspen Grove:

The blooms seem suspended above the green leaves like tiny birds, and tremble in the slightest breeze. Their lavender is the depth of aspen shadow, their yellow that of the first sunlight.

Colorado Blue Columbine, July 27, 2010

The lovely Columbine is Colorado’s state flower. It was chosen not only for its beauty, but also for the symbolism of its colors. The blue and white blossom symbolizes Colorado’s blue skies and white snow. The word “Columbine” comes from the Latin word “columba” which means “dove” as the flower’s white petals resemble the wings of a dove.

Photo Credit: Melissa Walker

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days…

Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten…

by poet James Russell Lowell (1819 – 1891)

Wild Iris (by Winston Walker)

Northern Flicker tends nest in Cottonwood Tree

Cottonwood seeds blowing in the wind

After a two-week hiatus, the Bobcat is again ranging through our backyard. We have seen it four out of the last five days, including today. Last Saturday the Bobcat was rolling around in the tall grass in our aspen grove; on Sunday, it was drinking from the filter tank of our backyard pond; yesterday it was carrying its prey – a fox squirrel – in its jaws; and this morning it simply ambled through the backyard sniffing the air. In my April 22 blog “A Bobcat in the Backyard,” I expressed my wish to see the Bobcat again. That wish has come true. Seeing the magnificent Bobcat reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

“Those who dwell among the wonders and mysteries of nature
are never alone or weary of life.”    by Rachel Carson

Bobcat in Backyard Habitat, photo by Les Goss

At this time of year, I am ready for snow showers to become rain showers. With rain forecast for this weekend, I opened my nature diaries to find the dates of the first rains in my Colorado Springs neighborhood for the last several years. In 2006, the first rain was on March 18, and I recorded snow, thunder and lightning on March 19. In 2007, it rained on March 9; in 2008, there was a dawn thunderstorm on May 7. Last year, the first real rain of the season was on April 27 with almost one-half inch overnight. Although we’ve had a few sprinkles this year, I’m still awaiting the first real rain. Perhaps tonight?

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try,
one more start,
with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
By J.B. Priestley

Rain-streaked Aspen Tree

Common Name – Pasque Flower
Latin Name – Pulsatilla patens
Family – Buttercup (Ranunculaceae)

On March 31, I hiked slowly along the trails of Bear Creek Nature Center hoping to find a Pasque Flower in bloom. I didn’t see any sign of the flowers in their usual location along the edges of a scrub oak thicket. Just as I was beginning to think that maybe I wouldn’t find one, I found two! The fragile-looking purple flower is actually quite hardy and very well-adapted to be one of Spring’s first wildflowers. It is cloaked with tiny silky hairs that help to insulate it from the cold winds and freezing temperatures of late March and early April. The flower is named “Pasque” because it blooms during the Easter (Paschal) season.

My favorite nature writer Ann Zwinger describes the Pasque Flower as,
“where there was snow last week, there is today a delicate Pasque Flower, so pale as to seem formed of snow crystals.”

While hiking last weekend after a fresh snowfall, I was treated to one of Nature’s transitory works of art. The emerging sun had created an unusual shadow on the sparkly snow that was shaped like a ginkgo leaf. The ephemeral blue shadow reminded me of one of my favorite quotes by Marcel Proust:

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes
but in having new eyes.

Snow Shadow Ginkgo