Colorado Nature Narratives

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 August 8, 2011, Lenore Fleck and I went for a short hike on the Lower Columbine Trail in North Cheyenne Cañon Park. The first mile of the Columbine Trail follows Cheyenne Creek and provided cool hiking for us in the shade of ponderosa pines, white firs and willow trees. Within the first few minutes of our hike, we were amazed to see a gorgeous orange bird with black wings fluttering in a tree near us. Neither one of us had ever seen a bird like this before! Fortunately, we got a good look at this brand new bird (to us) as it fed a fledgling at close range. After consulting two bird books, we identified it as a male Scarlet Tanager, Orange Variant.

Scarlet Tanager, Orange Variant. Photo by Bill Maynard

I called expert Colorado Springs birder Bill Maynard who immediately dropped what he was doing and drove to the Park. Fortunately, Bill arrived in time to observe the male Scarlet Tanager, Orange Variant, still tending the juvenile bird. Bill took some great photographs to document the unusual bird and reported it to Colorado’s Rare Bird Alert.

Photo by Bill Maynard

Typically, Scarlet Tanagers nest in the eastern United States and are considered rare sightings if they are seen west of central Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. To see this rare Tanager with its even more rare “Orange Variant” color was quite a birding event. Local birders and I exchanged emails during the next 24 hours, and several of us had the good fortune of seeing the colorful Tanager the following morning. I looked for it again today, August 13, but couldn’t find it.

My thanks to Bill Maynard for his permission to post his great photographs of the Scarlet Tanager, Orange Variant, and to reprint his descriptive email:

“I looked at my photographs and the Scarlet Tanager grabbed what looks like a yellow jacket or other yellow and black abdomened wasp, worked the stinger end between its mandibles, probably disabling the stinger, and fed it to the juvenile.  Pretty cool.”     – Bill Maynard

Tanager preparing wasp to feed to fledgling bird. Photo by Bill Maynard

Scarlet Tanager, Orange Variant, feeding fledgling. Photo by Bill Maynard.

On June 7^th, I took a short trip to Rocky Mountain National Park to see some of my favorite mountains sparkling white, wearing this year’s unusually high snowpack. Trail Ridge Road finally opened on June 6^th, its latest opening in 20 years, with 30-foot snow drifts covering parts of the alpine highway.

Long’s Peak at 14,259 feet towered over the Estes Park Valley and the blue jewel of Lily Lake. Every summer, I take a wildflower hike on the lake’s circular trail. This early in June, I was treated to a return to Spring. Light lavender Pasque flowers that bloomed in April in Colorado Springs were in full bloom on the west side of the lake. Scattered beneath the Ponderosa Pine trees was the largest natural garden of Pasque flowers I’d ever seen.

Long's Peak, June 7, 2011

The higher elevation of Estes Park, cooler temperatures and ample precipitation provided the perfect environment for these wildflowers to bloom a few weeks later than in the foothills. That’s one of the extra benefits of living in Colorado. You can follow Spring up the mountainsides.

Pasque Flowers at Lily Lake

Pasque Flower Close-up

Lily Lake and the Mummy Range

Photo Credits: all three photos by Nature Narratives author Melissa Walker

Recently I read The River in Winter, a collection of essays by Stanley Crawford. The author describes the rhythms of life and seasonal changes on his northern New Mexico farm and in the natural land bordering his cultivated fields. He observes how people absorb knowledge of their natural world without even trying. Even if they don’t know the names of trees, birds or flowers, they will know which trees leaf out first, where a hawk likes to perch, where the first flower of spring will bloom.

Light green bark of aspen trees

I have found this to be true. Even as a little girl growing up in north Louisiana, I knew when to look for ripe blackberries, that one bird sang only at night, and I recognized the songs of many birds even though the birds remained nameless to me for a long time. Over the years, though, I began to pay more attention to the natural world and came to expect to be surprised by nature on almost every venture outside. Just yesterday in my Colorado Springs neighborhood, I saw a Merlin, a small falcon with dark plumage, for the first time in my life. It was perched in one of the tall cottonwood trees right across the street. And in our backyard, I noticed the faint green color of chlorophyll that shades the bark of aspen trees, and heard the two-note whistle of the Black-capped Chickadee, reminding me that the first day of spring is only 23 days away.

Image via Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Bark of Aspen Trees by Melissa Walker; Black-capped Chickadee from Wikipedia

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

This summer, my husband and I took our traditional July hike on one of our favorite trails south of Creede, Colorado. As we hiked the familiar Ivy Creek Trail, we saw many fir and pine trees that were dead, and many that had been cut and pushed off the trail. Then, after hiking 3 miles, our way was blocked. Blocked by fallen trees that looked like giant toothpicks interlocked in a chaotic jumble.

Ivy Creek and dying forest

This summer, the forests near Creede were noticeably changing. From a distance, the evergreen forest had a reddish tinge, the first obvious sign that trees are dying from the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation. Some forest landscapes were totally gray, indicating that the needles, hence the trees, were already dead. All the infected trees will eventually die, lose their needles, and then fall over. The San Juan Mountains are now experiencing the outbreak of diseased trees that other areas of Colorado, including Summit County and Steamboat Springs, have been dealing with for almost a decade.

It is difficult for me to see breathtaking Colorado mountain views now marred by dying forests. But that’s the reality. Eventually, the evergreen forests will regenerate as sun-loving aspen trees will flourish and then provide a microclimate where spruce, fir and pines will thrive again.

So, our hike was bittersweet, and I didn’t even want to write about it for awhile. We saw such beauty on the shady path – shade-loving wildflowers of Red Columbine and light blue Jacob’s Ladder growing along the creek. Will they be there when their shade is gone?

Red Columbine

Jacob's Ladder

Photo Credit: All three photos by Les Goss

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

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