Colorado Nature Narratives

You can learn a lot about birds just by watching them for a few minutes, and you might be surprised by what you see. One sunny winter morning when I was observing chickadees and juncos at Bear Creek Nature Center’s feeders, I also noticed three tiny mice eating seeds that had fallen to the ground. Then suddenly, a scrub jay swooped down and ate one of the mice! I was astounded! I had only seen the jays eat seeds and insects, and had no idea that they would eat a mouse.

Scrub Jay with Acorn (Image via Wikipedia)

During fall, I have also watched scrub jays cache, or hide, seeds. When acorns develop on the scrub oak trees, the scrub jays go to work preparing for winter. A jay gathers an acorn, then flies to a particular location to cache it. Using its sturdy beak, the jay pushes the acorn into the ground, effectively storing it for future use, and inadvertently planting a tree.

Like ravens and magpies, jays are members of the crow family and have similar traits. All have raucous calls, tend to live in small family flocks and are considered among the most intelligent of birds. Scrub jays are easy to identify by their colors—blue head, tail and wings; light throat and breast; and gray back. Unlike crested Steller’s jays and blue jays, scrub jays have sleek heads.

The well-named scrub jays are most often found in scrub oak thickets in the foothills and are year-round avian residents of Colorado. It is only during the breeding season that the word “secretive” would describe this bird. For the rest of the year, the jay’s noisy call and flash of blue feathers herald its location.

(Photo via Wikipedia)

Late summer—still and quiet. Such a change from midsummer when the natural world took advantage of the longest days of the year. Just a few weeks ago, robins constantly patrolled the grass looking for food for their hungry nestlings, and spotted towhees seemed to sing all day long. Now, all the nestlings have grown up, and the birds no longer wake us up before dawn with their bubbly songs. Though warm weather still lingers, the change in bird behavior signals that summer days are fleeting and fall is already beginning.

Yellow and purple are the colors of late summer and early autumn. Traces of yellow are emerging in the deep green leaves of summer. Dotting the hillsides of the foothills are two late-blooming wildflowers—bright yellow Golden Aster and purple Blazing Star. Although they look quite different, they are actually in the same Composite flower family, commonly called the Sunflower family.

Blazing Star

A close look at the Blazing Star reveals that several tiny purple flowers are crowded together like a tight bouquet and bound by pale green sepals. These compacted “composite” flower heads attract many pollinating bees and other insects. The seeds will soon set before colder temperatures bring autumn’s first frost.

As I walk slowly through the wild edges of our open space park, I am contemplating these changes and transitions. Then, a flickering shadow shades my eyes and patterns my sleeve. For a moment, I am in the shadow of a butterfly. For only a moment.

Swallowtail Butterfly. Photo by Winston Walker

Photo Credits: Blazing Star photo by author. 2nd photo: in appreciation to my brother Winston Walker for the Swallowtail Butterfly photo he took yesterday, not yet knowing the topic of my article.

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.

Few people can hike through our mountain forests without being scolded by a pine squirrel. Also called a chickaree, this little gray squirrel is very noisy and territorial.

The chickaree gnaws through the cones of ponderosa, spruce and fir trees to reach its preferred food—conifer seeds. Similar to the way you and I eat corn-on-the-cob, the squirrel holds the pinecone between its front paws. Then, it turns the cone as it chews off the woody bracts all the way down to the pinecone’s core. Between the bracts, it finds the nutritious seeds.

Chickaree eating a cone. (Photo by Bret Tennis)

Usually the squirrel has a favorite feeding tree where it eats and then drops leftover pinecone pieces. The shredded cones at the base of its feeding tree may accumulate into huge piles, called middens, that are sometimes several feet across and over two feet deep. Very large middens are evidence that several generations of chickarees have used the same feeding tree for decades.

Pine Squirrel Midden (Photo by Bret Tennis)

In summer and fall, the chickaree gathers pinecones and buries them in the midden to serve as its winter and early spring food supply. On cold winter days, the well-prepared squirrel retrieves and eats a few of its stored cones.

As you walk or picnic in the higher elevations of our Colorado Springs mountain parks and open spaces —Garden of the Gods, Red Rock Canyon, Section 16 or North Cheyenne Cañon—look for a chickaree’s midden at the base of an evergreen tree. And if you hear a chattering squirrel long before you can see it, no doubt it is a chickaree.

Dry, dry, dry and windy sums up the weather in Colorado Springs for the last two months. During March and April, we usually have over a foot of snow. This year, we have had only a dusting. I went on a short hike last week at Bear Creek Nature Center to look for my favorite spring wildflower – the Pasque flower. The trails showed few signs of spring – it has been so dry. Finally, I found two pale Pasque flowers beginning to bloom on a shady slope. They had pushed through a brittle layer of last year’s scrub oak leaves.

Pasque Flowers and Oak Leaves

Later that day, my brother called from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to describe how migrating birds are beginning to arrive in his snow-filled part of the state. He sent a photo of a Sandhill Crane struggling to walk on snow and of a Mountain Bluebird perched on snow. The birds are having a difficult time finding any bare ground. He described Steamboat Springs’ weather for the last two months as “snow, snow, snow and more snow.” This week, the Steamboat Springs Pilot newspaper reports that the area still has 15 feet of snow on nearby Buffalo Pass and over 9 feet on Rabbit Ears Pass. My brother reports that he has over two feet of snow in his yard in town.

Sandhill Crane Walking through Snow

Mountain Bluebird Perched in Snow

How could our weather be so different? Colorado Springs is in a rain shadow, a phenomenon of mountain weather patterns. Colorado Springs is on the east slope of Colorado’s mountains, and Steamboat Springs is nestled against the northwest side of the mountains. When the moisture-laden Pacific storms reach Colorado’s northwestern mountains, the winds push the storms up the crest of the mountains, where the moisture condenses in the cold air and falls as snow.

By the time the storms blow to the east side of the mountains 100 miles away, the clouds have often released all their moisture, leaving Colorado’s Front Range cities and eastern prairies “high and dry.” Also, this spring’s weather is a continuation of the La Niña pattern where most of the snowstorms are tracking across Colorado’s northern mountains (according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service).

Fortunately, as of this week, rain showers are finally bringing some moisture to Colorado Springs. And eventually, warmer days will bring an end to Steamboat Springs’ snow – at least for this year.

Photo Credits:

Thanks to my brother Winston Walker for his photos of the Sandhill Crane and Mountain Bluebird

Pasque Flowers by author Melissa Walker

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.

A Few Facts about Red-tailed Hawks:

Red-tailed Hawks have broad wings, 4-foot wingspans and rounded tails that enable them to catch rising currents of warm air. They ride these air currents, called thermals, to soar high in the sky on the lookout for prey.

From its “perch” in the sky, the hawk uses its phenomenal eyesight – eight times better than human sight—to spot a mouse scurrying on the ground one-half mile away. The red-tail then swoops down and grasps the mouse in its powerful talons. Other favorite foods of this bird-of-prey are squirrels, rabbits, large grasshoppers, and even an occasional snake.

Red-tailed Hawk

A mature Red-tailed Hawk is fairly easy to identify with its reddish tail feathers, and is one of the most common hawks in the Pikes Peak Region. Pairs of red-tails use the same territory and nesting area year after year, and usually mate for life.

In most areas of Colorado, you can see this impressive bird almost daily, year-round. In our cities’ open spaces, in the mountains and on the eastern prairies, Red-tailed Hawks are either soaring on the thermals and winds, or perching in tall trees and on fence posts, to survey the landscape for any movement by their unsuspecting prey.

Photo Credit: Thanks to my brother Winston Walker for his photo of the Red-tailed Hawk.

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

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.

A scrabbling sound was the first indication of unusual activity in our backyard. I rushed to the window just in time to see the blurred motion of a red fox jumping up our fence, then turning 180 degrees to jump down and run in the opposite direction. Almost within reach of the fox’s tail were two bobcats! They pursued the fox for about 50 feet, and then abruptly stopped when the fox jumped out of our yard. Then the bobcats leisurely stretched out on the grass, yawned and were joined by a third bobcat. The fox was lucky that the bobcats gave up the chase, at least for today.

Bobcats lounging

The bobcats relaxed in the sunny part of our yard for about two hours, then roused themselves to drink from our backyard pond and to play in our pond’s filter tank. They looked liked overgrown housecats as they tussled in the tank. Then, one of the bobcats began scratching on an aspen tree, stretching upward 34 inches (I measured the next day), and dragging its claws down the soft bark. According to Timothy Mallow in his article Bobcat Ecology, “the vertical scratches made by the bobcat’s claws leave a visual marker and also leave a scent on the tree that originates from sweat glands in bobcat’s paws. Bobcats maintain and defend their ranges with the use of territorial markers, such as tree scratches. The home range of a female bobcat averages 2900 acres.” That is more than twice as large as Garden of the Gods Park (1367 acres).

Bobcat drinking from backyard pond

Bobcat scratching aspen tree

Bobcats playing in filter tank

The backyard bobcat drama lasted all day. By mid-afternoon, I noticed a fox squirrel at the tiptop of an aspen tree, anxiously flicking its tail and chattering. Half way up the same tree was one of the bobcats! When the squirrel jumped into the top of an adjacent aspen, the bobcat slowly backed down the tree trunk, then turned and jumped to the ground. I thought the hunt was over. But no, the bobcat looked up, located the squirrel and proceeded to climb the second tree. Then I observed that a second bobcat was patrolling the top of our back fence, near the squirrel’s tree.

At this point, I guessed that the squirrel would outlast the bobcats in patience and would remain at the very top of the tree until the bobcats left the neighborhood. I decided to check back in 5 minutes, but by then, I had missed the action. There was the bobcat strolling through the backyard with the lifeless squirrel in its mouth.

As the successful predator settled down to eat its prey, the other two bobcats watched neighborhood birds from the vantage point of our deck and took another nap. The three bobcats finally left our backyard in the late afternoon.

Bobcat sitting on our deck

The bobcats are probably three of the four kittens that were born in our neighbor’s yard last spring. Although the mother bobcat and her four kittens left their den in early July, neighbors occasionally saw one or more of the bobcats during the fall. Just last week, in mid-January, one neighbor saw all five bobcats – presumably the mother and the almost-grown kittens – parade across her deck in single file following the lead bobcat that held a dead squirrel in its mouth. The bobcats will soon deplete the easy prey in our neighborhood and move on to another part of their home range. Sometime between now and May, when the kittens are almost a year old, the mother will “evict her kittens from her home range.” Until then, we fortunate neighbors may glimpse the “wild kingdom” in our own Westside Colorado Springs neighborhoods.

2 young bobcats nuzzle, creating a mirror image

Bobcat jumping off our deck

Photo Credits: All photos were taken by author Melissa Walker.

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