BY JOHN KARRIGAN
I will start out just like last month (sort of). I was gone most of the month of August September and very little of the time was spent incarcerated. Mostly I was in Alaska Colorado with some time in the Seattle Black Hills area.
Back home in Powderhorn, I see that the lake water is still quite high and the grass and plants are still going quite crazy. There are still lots of Canada Geese on the grass and water, sometimes over 100 of them, a fair amount of ducks, and one Great Blue Heron Green Heron.
OK, I will try not to repeat any more of last month’s column.
On my first return walk in the park, around sunset, I ran into a regular park and dog walker (who also regularly picks up park litter) and he told me of a recent Bald Eagle sighting over the park. By the way, besides his nice old dog, he was with a nice young couple (people, not dogs) with a great, cute new child with them. I like to see new kids in the park, not just birds, butterflies and animals. The next day, in broad afternoon sunlight, I saw one or possibly two Bald Eagles. Anyway, I think the first Eagle was still high in a tree, across the lake, when another Eagle came over the lake.
In addition to the Eagle, or Eagles, I saw American Goldfinches, Yellow-rumped Warblers, a Nashville Warbler, and some Ring-billed Gulls, along with the usuals.
Back to my visiting in the Rocky Mountains. It took me about 10 days to find my first American Dipper this year, the only songbird that regularly swims, dives and walks under water, and is found only along fast-flowing, rocky streams. I found the first Dipper this year in Rocky Mountain National Park which is completing its 100th anniversary this year. Then I finally found one in the small stream near my “estate” in Winter Park. Usually I find the Dippers fairly regularly in at least three places. They are not a flashy bird but a dark gray Robin-size bird, and I enjoy them. On my first day looking for the Dippers, I found something brand new to me—a group of Black-throated Gray Warblers. A “superficially Chickadee-like” bird my Sibley book said. It was great to see a brand new bird and find out exactly what it was. Of course, there were lots of Black-billed Magpies, Common Ravens and Gray-headed Juncos, and normal birds like American Robins, etc., that visited our deck, along with Least Chipmunks, Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels, Chickarees [not a typo] and something new this year—a Long-tailed Weasel, or I think a Least Weasel. And only once that we saw, a Red Fox.
Hopefully, I will have lots of birds, bugs and animals in the neighborhood and park to report on next month, and I won’t have to run from the law.
Comments and observations are always welcome. Send them to me, in care of Southside Pride. Thank you.
