Colorado Nature Narratives

A celestial event in the early morning hours of December 10 will add a new dimension to one of the most beautiful views in the world – Pikes Peak framed by the red rock spires of Garden of the Gods. On that morning, an eclipsed moon will set behind Pikes Peak. According to SKY AND TELESCOPE magazine, the Earth’s shadow will begin to eclipse the moon at 5:45 a.m. (Mountain Standard Time), and by 7:05 a.m., the moon will be in total eclipse.

Image via Wikipedia

Over the years, I have seen the Garden of the Gods’ magnificent red rocks and Pikes Peak cloaked by the snows of winter and the thunderclouds of summer, and illuminated by the bright light of dawn and the last rays of sunset. But I have never seen a shadowed moon set behind the famous view of the red rocks and Pikes Peak.

The weather forecast for December 10 is clear, yet I don’t know exactly what time the moon will disappear behind the western mountains, or how soon the light of the rising sun will fade the colors of the eclipsed moon. But I will be up early and watching, as there is always something new to discover.

Note: to read about the last total eclipse in Colorado on December 20 – 21, 2010, please visit my blogs dated December 15, 2010 and December 21, 2010 entitled “Anticipating the Total Lunar Eclipse on December 21, 2010″ and “It’s Midnight and the Moon is Slipping into Earth’s Shadow.”

Photo Credits: Partial Lunar Eclipse via Wikipedia;  Garden of the Gods with Pikes Peak by Nature Narratives author Melissa Walker

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.

Late in the afternoon on September 10, volunteers and friends met in Garden of the Gods Park in Colorado Springs to observe the White-throated Swifts and their sunset flight behavior. The fast-flying birds are one of the reasons that the Garden of the Gods is a National Natural Landmark, as the Park is one of the largest summer and migratory roosting sites for the White-throated Swifts along the Rocky Mountain Front Range.

When our group gathered on the west side of North Gateway Rock, the Swifts were flying so high overhead that they were difficult to see without binoculars. Then, as the sun sank lower toward the horizon, the Swifts lowered their circular flight pattern over the Park’s Central Garden area. We could hear the birds twittering as they flew in wide circles near their roosting sites. Then, as the sun dipped behind Pikes Peak, the Swifts began to funnel into a long crack on the west side of the Tower of Babel in North Gateway Rock, their primary roosting site. It took about ten minutes for the Swifts to disappear into the large rock crevice and smaller roosting sites nearby.

Swifts flying at sunset, Garden of the Gods

In 2009, I observed that the Swifts migrated on September 23, just before a cold front brought snow to the foothills. This year, Lenore Fleck watched for the Swifts’ departure. On September 25, 2010, she wrote, “No change in weather, still warm and dry. Yesterday, the Swifts were circling at six-o’clock. Today, silent skies.”

The Swifts migrated to the southwest border of the United States and farther south into Mexico where they will find abundant flying insects to sustain them through the winter. At the Garden of the Gods, we will be watching for the Swifts to return in early April as they complete another full circle of their annual migration journey.

Swift Rescued

This fall, Haleigh Shafer, Garden of the Gods Park Intern, rescued a White-throated Swift that she found lying in the Visitor Center parking lot. Before the bird was transported to a wildlife rehabilitation center, Haleigh took several photos. In this photo, note how the bird’s folded wings are longer than its tail. The Swift’s wingspan is 15 inches and its body is only 6.5 inches. The photo shows how small a Swift really is, about the size of a cell phone, yet it migrates hundreds of miles every fall and spring.

Swift rests next to cell phone

Photo Credits:
Swifts flying next to North Gateway Rock by Dave Meyers.
Swift resting next to cell phone by Haleigh Shafer.

I was leading a bird walk in Garden of the Gods Park this morning, but the bright wildflowers were so beautifully “distracting” that the focus of the walk quickly widened. Light blue Penstamon, creamy white Yucca, light pink Wild Roses and orange-red Indian Paintbrush competed with the birds for my attention.

The rains and late snows of this year’s spring season brought adequate moisture to nurture this year’s healthy bloom of the Plains Yucca. The tall stalks of white flowers cover many of the hills and mesas in the Pikes Peak Region almost every year. The pale blossoms attract night-flying moths that pollinate the yucca. Then, within a few weeks, the flowers become bulky, 2 – 4 inch seedpods. The seeds are a good source of food for wildlife. Even after a deep snowfall, birds can fly to the tall yucca stalks and feast on the seeds.

Plains Yucca with needle-sharp leaves

Always a favorite, the orange-red Indian Paintbrush flowers really do look like paintbrushes dipped into bright paint, then set out in the foothills to dry. Indian Paintbrushes at lower elevations are usually red or orange in color. Higher in the mountain, paintbrushes of rose and light yellow are more common.

Indian Paintbrush

Adding to the beauty of the wildflowers is the sweet fragrance of the Chokecherry shrub. This member of the Rose Family has tiny white flowers arranged singly on a dangling 4 – inch flower stalk, called a raceme. After the flowers are pollinated, they change into green seeds. By late summer, the ripe seeds, now red, are called chokecherries and are a favorite food of birds, bears and other mammals.

Chokecherries in full bloom

Since mid-March, I have been watching for the return of the White-throated Swifts. Last fall, they “disappeared” from Garden of the Gods Park on September 23 on a very blustery day. Their disappearance was expected, though, and happens every year when the Swifts migrate south for the winter.

Today, it was snowing at dawn, but by mid-morning the snow had ceased and the clouds were beginning to lift. I decided to go ahead and hike in the Garden to look for the Swifts. Since the Swifts left on a very blustery day in September, perhaps they would “reappear” on this very blustery day in April.

Today in Garden of the Gods

My friend and I hiked on the trail that leads from the Main Parking Lot to the Twins Rock Formation. Along the way we saw flocks of Dark-eyed Juncos, cavorting Ravens, a pair of Scrub Jays, several Spotted Towhees, and heard the two-note whistle of the Black-capped Chickadee. But no White-throated Swifts.

Hiking back, we were surprised to see Wild Turkey tracks in the snow – the first such tracks I’ve ever seen in Garden of the Gods.

Wild Turkey Tracks

We also saw Rock Pigeons, an American Robin, a Bushtit, several Black-billed Magpies, heard a Canyon Wren, and watched a fast-flying Prairie Falcon circling North Gateway Rock. Then, I finally heard the familiar, high twittering of the Swifts. There they were, flying high over Gray Rock! Welcome back, White-throated Swifts, to your summer home.

(For more information about the Swifts, visit my very first Nature Narrative Blog dated February 8, 2010.)

I have had the privilege of closely observing wildlife in Garden of the Gods Park for almost 20 years. One of my annual spring challenges is to locate the nest of the Prairie Falcons. Usually they nest high on the east face of North Gateway Rock in a weathered hollow in the sandstone. Every year, the birds perform their courtship rituals, lay eggs, and raise their fledglings – while seeming oblivious to the many park visitors who hike on the trail 200 feet below the nest.

The Prairie Falcon is a bird of prey built for speed. It is streamlined with a sleek head, long pointed wings and a tapered tail. These features enable the Falcon to overtake its favorite prey of White-throated Swifts and Rock Pigeons and snatch them out of the air.

Another hunting technique is “stooping.” Flying at great heights, the Falcon targets a bird, then folds its wings and dives at almost 200 miles per hour to strike its prey with such tremendous force that it knocks it out of the air. I witnessed this dramatic event one morning while hiking in the Garden. A White-throated Swift was flying incredibly fast just 3 feet off the ground when all of a sudden, a Prairie Falcon appeared out of nowhere and knocked the Swift to the ground. I cautiously approached the Swift. It was already dead from the impact. Then I waited about 100 feet away to see what the Falcon would do. It again appeared as if out of nowhere, landed next to the dead Swift and immediately began to tear it into bite-sized pieces and consume it.

In Colorado’s Pikes Peak area, the Prairie Falcons can be found year-round in the cliffs and canyons of the foothills. In Garden of the Gods Park, close observers may see Rock Pigeons and Swifts scatter whenever a Prairie Falcon takes to the air.

In 1992, paleontologists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science discovered a Stegosaurus fossil in the Garden Park Fossil Area north of Cañon City, Colorado. This nearly complete dinosaur skeleton showed conclusively, for the first time, the exact position of the Stegosaurus’s tail spikes. The four knife-like, 12-inch spikes are attached to and point outward horizontally from the end of its tail, rather than upward as previously thought. Paleontologists concur that the Stegosaurus used its spiked tail as a weapon against predators.

One of the first correct depictions of a Stegosaurus dinosaur with outward-pointing spikes was painted in 1995 for the Jurassic Mural at Garden of the Gods Visitor & Nature Center by artists Jans and Debra Vriesen. The Stegosaurus is depicted in its Jurassic landscape of conifers, seed ferns and horsetail plants. In designing the scene, the Vriesens consulted closely with paleontologists of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, where the artists also created murals for the award-winning Prehistoric Journey exhibit.

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Location: Southeastern Colorado Birding Trail: Pikes Peak Region
Garden of the Gods Park
1805 N. Street, Colorado Springs, CO  80904

Description of April 27, 2009 Bird Walk:
It was a perfect Colorado day for a morning bird walk in Garden of the Gods Park. The week’s rain showers had left the air fresh, the sky cobalt blue and Pikes Peak glistening white under a new blanket of snow. My friends and I decided to begin our birding at the east Rock Ledge Ranch entrance of the park so that we could walk through a variety of habitats from the Ranch to the towering rocks in the heart of the park.

Sandstone pinnacles in the heart of the park

As we neared the Ranch pond, we saw our first migrant, a Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s), flitting among the willow branches. We then watched as a female American Robin, its beak packed with insects, furtively made its way to its nest in a tall White Fir tree. In contrast, a male Red-winged Blackbird broadcast its presence with its piercing call and showy red wing patches.

The tranquility of the pond was broken by two male Mallard Ducks fighting over one female. The two drakes fought in the middle of the pond, biting each other’s heads as they whirled in circles, loudly splashing the water. Meanwhile, the female climbed out of the pond and disappeared into the willows, and eventually, one of the drakes gave up the fight and flew away. Continue Reading »