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

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

In rereading Beyond the Aspen Grove by naturalist and author Ann Zwinger, I found passages to savor on every single page. On this snowy winter morning, Ann’s words paint a picture of the bright colors of summer and remind me to enjoy winter’s beauty, too.

This land is a place of all seasons, for even in winter there is the promise of spring, and in spring, the foretaste of summer. The white of snow becomes the white of summer clouds, the resonant green of spruce becomes the green head of drake mallard; the gray of rock and lichen endures in the gray of lowering winter skies; the same orange-red of Indian paintbrush bars the blackbird’s wing and stains the western tanager’s head. Here part of each season is contained in every other.