The Field

Mt. Audubon

My dad and I went to the Brainard Lake Recreation Area on Saturday, and despite an exceptionally late start, made it more than half the way up Mt. Audubon in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area.  It was beautiful, and we had the trail all to ourselves.  The lateness of the day and rainy weather earlier in the day had probably driven everyone off of the mountian.  The amount of snow on the trail was exceptional.  Drifts taller than me still covered much of the trail, even at the lower elevations.  Actually, that's where most of it was -- it had already melted off of the exposed tundra farther up, but remained in the shade of the forest lower down.  I can look west any time and see that there's still snow on the mountians, but... it was still shocking to see such quantities of it in the middle of June! 

We got a few small drops of rain, but the weather mostly held for us and it wasn't until we were well up on the tundra that I had to don a thin sweatshirt, which kept me warm the rest of the trip.  Unfortunately, we knew the light wouldn't hold out, and had to turn around at 7:00.  This is as high up the mountain as we got, looking up and looking down:

I think this is a limber pine.  These trees were beautiful, with their smooth bark, tufts of needles, and cones all clustered at the top, and they provided a nice contrast with the sub alpine fir and Engleman spruce.

Priorities

During lunch on Easter, conversation shifted at one point to goings on at the nearby Flatiron Crossing mall.  Speaking of the days (not so very long ago) before the area was all paved over and turned into a giant mall, retail  center, swanky apartments and office buildings, my dad said, "All I know is, it used to be a great place to ride my bike."  To which my sister quipped, "Now it's a great place to shop!"

Which do you value more?

So this is winter

So this is what it's like to have a winter!  Six weeks, six snows, at least two of which have been blizzards and all of which have yielded at least a few inches of new snow.  The first was the biggest; it hit back on Wednesday, December 20th.  It dumped about two feet and completely shut down the Denver metro area, including I-25 from Wyoming to New Mexico and I-70 east to Kansas, and of course the air port.  I was supposed to fly out to see my love in NW Arkansas on Thursday morning.  The airport wasn't able to resume operation until Friday (the rest of the city would take even longer) and I wasn't able to leave until the following Monday, Christmas morning.  That was an adventure, and it's recorded elsewhere.  I bravely ventured out for a walk during the blizzard, so bundled up against the icy blast that walking down to the field felt like taking a space walk, or deep sea diving.  I took pictures of the field being buried in the blowing snow, at least some of which I will post. 

It's really amazing what two feet of snow does to the landscape.  It not only transforms the landscape (replacing my car, for instance, with an ovoid lump in the snow) it also changes your perspective of it, raising you up an extra two feet (once the crust becomes hard enough to walk on).  The second blizzard hit only a week later, while I was still away with my love, adding an additional foot.  The snows since then have been variable, from two to six inches, all coming on the weekends. 

Now, we're used to snow around here... we're just not used to it lasting for a month or more.  The blizzard of '03 dumped more snow than that of Christmas '06, but it was melting before it was even done falling.  The funny thing about the last six weeks is that, aside from a spring-like break for a few days this week, it's been cold, very cold, on a consistent basis, and the snow has stayed.  Six week old snow hills still clog neighborhood streets and parking lots.  Driving through neighborhoods has become a routine of bouncing over bumps and ruts that you'd expect to feel on a rough back-country road and parking in-between snow mounds the size of cars.  I hear Denver proper is especially bad -- best avoid it until spring.  The rough conditions have begun to take a toll on my car; a hubcap bounced off somewhere, and one night I tried to open the driver's side door, but it was frozen shut and the handle broke off.  We've also twice experienced something new to me -- ground blizzards.  Snow isn't falling, but fierce winds whip up the snow on the ground into a new blizzard.  The winds and cycles of a little sun during the day followed by freezing at night have created ice and dense, slow melting snow.

There's no doubt that this is the snowiest, coldest winter since I was a kid, and incredibly we haven't even gotten to our snowiest month yet!  The family has been talking recently about climatic cycles; it does seem like there was more snow when I was a kid.  It seems like, back in elementary school, it snowed heavily enough that we could expect at least one or two snow days per year, and my early memories of winter are very snowy.  Then, in middle school or early high school, it dried up.  I got one or two half days, but I don't recall a single snow day during all of high school, and the winters so far this century, except for the blizzard of '03, have been especially mild.  We've gotten used to temperatures in the fifties and sixties occurring in December and January, and to snow that falls one day and melts the next.  (Back in high school, if I wanted to go sledding then I had to do it the day it snowed or the day after.  We've had ample snow for sledding on the hills now for six solid weeks.)  We've come to think that's what winters are like in Colorado.  People who moved here during the 90's and more recently must think this weather is especially freakish, but maybe it's not.  Maybe it signals a return to the kinds of winters we had when I was a kid, to real winters where it's cold and the snow falls often and covers the ground for months on end. 

Maybe we've gotten a bit wimpy.  Even I was starting to get sick of bouncing through the neighborhood and not being able to see the ground anywhere.  But as the ground began to reappear earlier this week I knew I would miss the great snow when it was gone.  Now the ground is covered once more.  I wonder if continued harsh winters would make people think twice before moving here, and encourage some of the newcomers to go elsewhere.  If so, I say bring it on.  It's called winter, and it's beautiful. Love the snow and have a sense of humor about the inconveniences it deals to your schedule.  Or move to Tucson.

Mammals rule!

The class ended with a rigorous two and a half hour final yesterday.  The second week of the class involved a lot of traveling and trying to hang on to pemas (Peromyscus maniculatus -- deer mice). We made a big rectangular circuit, studying mammals in different habitats: first Phantom Canyon, a Nature Conservancy preserve north of Fort Collins (plains grassland) then north, west through Wyoming, and south again to Brown's Park National Wildlife Refuge (shrubland) and then south to Colorado National Monument (pinion pine-juniper ecosystem). This week we were back at the Mountain Research Station looking at sub-alpine and alpine environments.  I think my favorite part may have been just seeing all the different landscapes and ecosystems, of which the mammals were just one part.  We also saw some cool birds, herons at brown's park, a ptarmigan above the research station -- mottled white and brown, halfway between winter and summer plumage, huddled against the earth and looking like an inconspicuous rock by the trail that I would not have noticed were it not for the people gathered nearby -- and some white-crowned sparrows that were hanging out in the shrubs up above tree line on Wednesday.  There was some feeling of disappointment in the class that we didn't see the diversity of mammals that we hoped for, no moose, no red-backed voles, just a lot of pemas and a couple of kangaroo rats in Brown's Park.  But I saw 17 mammal species all together, by my count, representing 5 orders and 8 families:

1. Order Chiroptera (bats):

     Family Vespertilionidae:  little brown myotis bats (Myotis lucifugus), big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus), a long-eared myotis bat (Myotis volans)*, silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans)*,

2. Order Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates):

     Family Antilocapridae (pronghorn):  pronghorn (Antilocapra americana),

3. Order Rodentia:

     Family Muridae (mice and rats):  deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus)*,

     Family Heteromyidae (pocket mice and kangaroo rats):  Ord's kangaroo rats (Dipodomys ordii)*,

     Family Sciuridae (squirrels):  black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus), white-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys leucurus)*, a least chipmunk (Tamias minimus), a yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flavientris) (briefly),

4. Order Lagamorpha (rabbits and hares):

     Family Leporidae (rabbits and hares):  desert cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus audubonii), black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus)*, snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus)*,

     Family Ochotonidae (pikas): some pikas (very briefly),

5. Order Carnivora:

     Family Mustelidae:  a long tailed weasel (Mustela frenata)*, and

     Family Felidae:  a bobcat (Lynx rufus)*. 

That's not bad :)  Especially since I'd never seen 9 of those before (the ones marked with an asterisk).  Also, I've now memorized the 8 orders and 25 families of Colorado mammals.  If you'd like a recitation, just ask.  Mammals are awesome.

Field mammalogy class, week 1

So I'm taking a field mammalogy course at CU's Mountain Research Station, and I've learned a few things: the skulls I found in the field were indeed a raccoon and a cat (having studied a lot of skulls in lab -- all very interesting) and the bats that fly around the field in the summer are probably big brown (Eptesicus fuscus) or little brown (Myotis lucifugus) bats, or some combination thereof (having asked a bat biologist tonight).  Of course I've learned a lot of other stuff about skulls and teeth and mammals in general too, though I need to memorize a lot more if i hope to pass the exams. 

On Monday, I saw a bobcat!  I was snacking in my car at the MRS, and happened to look up, and a bobcat was looking back, just feet in front of the hood of the car.  I never hoped to see one!  He noticed me but wasn't too perturbed as I groped for my camera; he went around the side of the car and continued behind it.  I got the camera but couldn't see him behind the car, so I opened the door to get a look.  That bothered him a little, and he moseyed off into the forest as I snapped pictures.  It was about 8:40 pm, after sunset but still plenty of light.  I'm still amazed that I got such a good luck at such an elusive animal.  I'll probably never see one again!

Today we went to look at prairie dogs, and met a researcher studying prairie dogs.  I've actually read one of her papers before, and had half a mind to ask for an autograph ("Wow, the Sharon Collinge, of Landscape effects on black-tailed prairie dog colonies fame?").  So the stuff we talked about was mostly stuff I knew.  We also had our first practice with our field notebooks, trying to observe the prairie dogs.  Sure, I've observed prairie dogs plenty before, but it's a little different when you're trying to record it accurately in a scientific manner. It'll take some practice.  Tonight we observed bat catching (and releasing) in Bear Canyon in Boulder; tomorrow we get to see radio telemetry of deer in Boulder.  Now if there was no actual work involved in the class, that would be great.

Eagles and coyotes at Standley Lake

My dad and I saw the pair of bald eagles by their nest at Standley Lake on the way home from church this morning, and decided to go back and take a look at the eagle viewing blind.  We finally got around to it around 4:30.  It was about a half mile walk from where we parked, through prairie dogs and rabbits, past a dead raccoon.  It was a beautiful day; the sun was nearing the mountains as we reached the blind, which looks towards them.  When we got there, they weren't home, though we had seen one on the way over, who flew out of a tree.  We watched for a while, seeing no eagles but some great scenery. 

I heard the prairie dogs barking and saw a coyote some distance away trotting among them.  We watched through our binoculars.  He was beautiful.  He disappeared, he reappeared.  A second coyote appeared.  The eagles appeared, one in a distant cottonwood tree to the right of the one containing their huge nest.  Just a black dot to the naked eye, and little more with our binoculars, but then she flew, and the other appeared, flying out of another tree.  You could see their white tails and heads.  I followed one as he flew in front of the mountains, across the flatirons, and finally in front of Long's peak before disappearing from my view. 

The coyotes reappeared.  Three of them!  Two led the pack, with the third lagging behind.  I guessed that the leading two were a pair.  The one in front was slightly smaller -- the female?  They were relatively close, their tan/brown fun, sharp ears, and fluffy, black tipped tails were all apparent.  Even the little black spot on the middle of their tails were clear.  They were well aware of our presence, stopping to look our way from time to time.  The pair made their way to a hole; the third stood a few feet away.  The smaller one started digging, and within a minute came up with a prairie dog in her mouth!  I'd never seen that before!  She made it look so easy!  What was the prairie dog doing so close to the mouth of his hole?  Did the third coyote scare it from one hole over to the other, into the jaws of his pack mate?  It was amazing.  They were gorgeous.  Somehow, I was reminded of my girlfriend, but then everything beautiful reminds me of her at this point.  They trotted over the hill and out of sight.  We spied an eagle again, now on the nest.  One coyote remained partially in view, possibly eating.  The sun was set and my hands were getting too cold to hold the binoculars straight, so we left.  Turning to the east, suddenly there was the full moon rising.  It's always so beautiful framed by an old cottonwood.  The rangers had already closed the gate, so my dad's van was locked in; luckily the ranger came by and let us out.  How many places are there in the world where you can view nesting bald eagles and hunting packs of coyotes within feet of the city?  We're so lucky.

Inclining towards fall

My recent posts have been pretty dour; I ought to say something more upbeat.  It's been summer for a long time, hasn't it?  I've rather taken it for granted this year, enjoying the weather (except for the intolerably hot July) and not looking forward to, or even thinking of, its end.  Then this week the weather went from clear, high 80's one day to cloudy 60's the next, with thunderstorms through the night.  It was cold, and has remained pretty cool through the week, as though suddenly, in the space of a day, it changed from late summer to fall.  I noticed some flecks of yellow in the cottonwoods.  They don't change all at once, but piecemeal at first -- a clump of leaves here, a clump of leaves there.  There are a few yellow leaves on the ground, the cool weather makes it enjoyable to sleep under a blanket again, and I suppose my soul is finally beginning to incline towards fall.  Isn't it awesome that we have seasons?  This is a transitional time.  It will warm up again, and probably be dry.  The sky will usually be clear and the sun always low on the horizon (the reason I hate driving in the fall).  The leaves will change, and the rustle of dry leaves, both on the ground and those still clinging like the last undergarments to denuding, immodest trees will become ubiquitous.  I feel a sort of mischievous energy associated with fall, probably because of Halloween.  And on some cool, early evening it'll really hit me that it's here.

Just a bug?

I was standing at the bus stop when I felt something *hit* my glasses.  I'm not sure how it was possible, but I couldn't see anything on them.  I took them off anyway, and there was the biggest beetle you could ever hope to have land on your face.  It was a good inch and a half long, longer than it was wide; not a bulky, roach-like body, but almost like a huge cricket. At first I thought it had caught a much smaller bug in its mouth, but that may have just been the look of its rather frightening mandibles.  It had long legs, long, arcing antennae, and big, black, alien eyes.  It's carapace was grayish or black; its backside was black and attractively speckled with white.  It swiveled its head and carefully walked around my glasses. 

I was a little concerned that it might fly onto me, but it didn't.  Instead, it flew onto the guy who was sitting nearby, landing on his back.  He was unaware of it; it crawled up towards his shoulder.  I thought I should tell him, especially since his girlfriend was putting her arm around him and it might crawl up onto her fingers, which would no doubt cause an amusing scene when she freaked out.  But I was concerned for the insect.  The way he was shifting around, he might hurt it accidentally. 

"There's a rather large beetle on your shoulder," I said. 

The two of them noticed it then, of course, and got to brushing it off.  The guy thanked me and I nodded and turned away as the situation seemed resolved.  I turned back, the beetle was on the ground near the grass and out of the way.  The guy slipped off his shoe and -- SMACK! -- smashed the beetle.  I was slackjawed, shocked. 

"Ew!  Gross!" complained the girlfriend, "Now it's just suffering." 

It was flipped on its back, its body intact.  Its legs worked at the air for a second, then stopped.  The guy flicked it into the grass.  What did he do that for!  It didn't hurt him, it didn't do anything bad; it was off of him and out of the way.  Yet he still found it necessary to go to the trouble of taking off his shoe and smashing it.  He thanked me again.  He thanked me!  I told him it was on him so that he wouldn't accidentally hurt it, but instead he used the information to intentionally hurt it.  I'd never in my life until that moment seen this particular and very impressive brand of beetle, and he just killed it.  It was a marvelous insect.  It was alive.  It was doing no harm.  You might see this sort of insect on display in a zoo.  Why kill it?  Because it was a bug?  Because it touched him?  Because it was "gross?"  Dead bugs are gross.  Squished bugs are gross.  It wasn't gross until he killed it.  He killed it for no reason.  He killed it, he thanked me, and he got on his bus.  I had met that bug.  I was surprised and happy to see this creature, a life form new to me, encountered unexpectedly and up close.  The suddenness and callousness with which the guy killed it was shocking.  "It was just a bug," I'm sure he'd say if he could be bothered to explain the action.  A beautiful, marvelous insect.  He killed it for no reason.

A Vocal Encounter

So it's 1:30 a.m. and I'm heading home from work.  I drive up the hill, onto the short stretch of Highway 128 that'll take me to Simms street, where I will turn toward home.  I'm a little worn from work, and feeling not entirely satisfied with my new glasses prescription, and things like that.  The moon is only a day past full.  The turn approaches, and I slide into the turn lane, turn on the blinker, slow down, and then slide back over and keep going.  Maybe I'll just keep going I think, rather belatedly. 

I want to check out Highway 128, drive past these ugly two office buildings that have forever marred the view of Long's Peak from my house, and this subdivision that sits next to them.  Who would build a big block of houses up here, where there are no businesses (excluding the two offices) and no services?  It's so out of place.  Was it specifically to spur more development in this area, when these people decide they need a grocery store and a Walmart nearby?  I leave them behind.  Indiana Street and McCaslin Blvd go by.  I'm out in the prairie now, thousands of acres of undeveloped land between myself and the city.  It's hilly, with trees along riparian areas in the low places, and the moon illuminates it all.  The road drops down a steep, long hill and climbs up the next.  I remember the place and the road.  There are a few trail heads along here somewhere, and my dad brought us to hike here sometimes, 5-10 years ago, maybe.  I haven't been here in years, and it's beautiful. 

Up ahead are the red lights on the wind turbines at the National Wind Technology Center.  A few miles over to the left are the bright white lights of the former Rocky Flats plant, where triggers for nuclear weapons were made during the Cold War.  I will not miss those lights when they are gone, but they leave a surprisingly good legacy: the whole prairie on my left (south) from Indiana up to Highway 93 (excluding the wind tech center), the defunct plant's 6000 acre buffer zone, are to be the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge when cleanup at the plant is completed.  I take a great amount of comfort in knowing the prairie I'm driving through is safe (on my right it's already protected open space).  It gives one hope to think that we might take a place used to manufacture death and turn it into a place devoted to the preservation of life. 

The mountains loom ahead and the Flatirons are clearly visible in the moonlight and it's beautiful.  I see little turn outs now and then.  I want to stop somewhere and look around, but I'm already near the end of the road -- the intersection with Highway 93 shines brightly ahead, the only street lamp for miles.  I stop and wait for the green arrow and make a U-turn, and I'm totally going to stop somewhere this time.  After I've gone back up that big hill, and the intersection with McCaslin is visible in the distance, I finally slow and stop on a straight stretch of road.  I haven't seen another car in all this time.  Probably no one has much use for Highway 128 at this time of night.  I see more stars than I would at home, but many are drowned out by the moon and nearby cities.  The moon is in the south, its light is everywhere.  I'm a little to far to see the Flatirons now, but it's so bright, like a cool blue daylight, and I'd love to venture out into it.  But if the occasional car that comes along happened to see me and decided to investigate, there could be some awkwardness, and I'm not willing to risk that.  Insects are whirring all around.  The air is warm, probably high 70's.  City lights stretch along the horizon, south to east to north, interrupted by the grade of the hills.  I can make out the blue of the arrogantly bright QWEST sign atop its building downtown.  There's the towers on Lookout mountain, and an even more distant red dot marking the one on Mt. Morrison.  There's a few unwelcome lights on the mountains nearby, and the windmills, and the string of twinkling white Rocky Flats lights. 

But none of those places are near.  This is the prairie, awash in moonlight, stirring with life.  This is where I am.  In places like this at times like this there is a subtle energy, which probably seems like silence if you're not listening, but which will soak into you if you let it.  It permeates me.  It's only a matter of time before I start howling.  I learned to howl in a field study class in Montana.  It turns out to be really fun and a great release.  There are no wolves here, of course, so I mostly practice my coyote impression.  My wolf call was often complimented by my colleagues, but to my knowledge no one has ever heard my coyote.  Theirs is a dialect vastly different from wolf -- and in ways more difficult to replicate -- a chaotic chorus of barks, yips, and high pitched howls. 

A car goes by every now and then and I hide from their incriminating headlights.  Then, spontaneously, somewhere ahead of me in the hills of the future refuge, the real coyotes start singing.  Two groups, I think, an individual or two off to my left and a group farther off straight ahead.  I was thinking that if one did this often enough, one would hear a coyote eventually.  There must be a dozen out there!  The one to my left likes to bark his harsh bark and only howls a little bit; the other group howls a whining, quavering chorus.  I love the way their voices waver while they howl.  That's the most difficult element for me to get right.  It's a wild sound.  I join them, barking and howling (their barks are sharp and quick and loud -- it's all in the diaphragm, as is howling, mostly) and listening to them, and howling and listening some more.  They stop after a minute or so. 

Minutes later, they start again, I join them again.  I make sounds louder than anyone I know would ever imagine me making.  There's three groups in this howling session (excluding me).  In addition to the two former groups there seems to be a new guy straight ahead of me and close.  It's awesome.  I try a few new tricks based on what I'm hearing.  The sharp rise in intonation, the nasal pitch; the harsh bark.  They quiet down again and I sit for a while and stand for a while and enjoy the place and time.  I want to run down this road, or straight into the grass.  I improvise with the howls a little, as the coyotes seem to do, but mostly enjoy the not-quiet, the insects and stars and bird -- what kind of bird could that be? -- and the occasional whisper of a breeze.  Can some people truly not believe in God? 

Around 2:30 I decide to howl once more and head for home.  I do, and they answer, barking and trilling in their ever changing way.  The landscape might look blank, passing in a car.  But wild ones are roving grassy hills, calling in the dark.  "Hey!  I'm over here!" that one might be saying, and, "Hey!  This place is ours, and there's a lot of us! This place is ours!" that group responds.  I wonder how they perceive my calls, whether greeting, threat, or simple invitation to sing? 

I linger a while and depart.  I take the long way (as if I haven't already) by way of Indiana, up and down big hills.  I see Great Western Reservoir, not a small lake by local standards, yet below the grade and invisible from most surrounding roads.  I'm not sure I've ever seen it before.  On the side of the road I spot a deer, a buck at that.  Abundant in the mountains and foothills, you don't see them much east of the mountains.  I've never seen one so close to home.  A doe would be a rare enough sight -- it was a buck!  Standley Lake is scenic with lights reflecting on it.  Was there really three howling sessions, exactly?  Was there only three groups of coyotes? The precise sound of a coyote is difficult to remember after you hear it, even as you are hearing it.  It's ethereal, hard to hold in your head.  I doubt a human voice could ever really mimic it; it's a wild sound. 

A Big Hole in the Fence

Gray clouds and a little thunder made an appropriate canopy for several dozen mourners gathered by 106th yesterday, where, on Saturday, a teenager traveling at unlikely speeds (how could you even get up to 70 mph on that road? the speed limit is something like 30) hit the speed bump, lost control, and ended up plowing through the fence into someone's backyard.  Her two passengers survived; she did not.  It's ironic -- the speed bumps were, I'm sure, installed to make people safer.  And there are signs that warn of their presence before you reach them.  What can you do?  I seem to recall hearing of some new state law that would make it illegal for teenagers to carry passengers, and I think that might have helped here.  For some reason it seems that as the number of friends in the car increases, their collective intelligence goes down.  I didn't know her, of course, but it looks like a lot of people did.  What a wasteful, pointless, sucky thing to have happen.