Wildlife!

Yesterday we were doing bird surveys and I saw the first elk I've seen since I've been out here. They were really skittish, quickly running away when they saw us. I managed to snap this picture first:

No moose yet, but plenty of signs. Here is a moose track. It's 6 inches long by 4.5 inches wide, which is how I know it's a moose (elk tracks are about 4 X 4 inches).

I also found these bones which are too big to be from anything but a moose.

I've also seen some more beautiful wildflowers lately. These lovely calypso orchids (called fairy slippers) grow in moist places (the first picture is sideways):

We also found some wild white violets:

Ok, these are not wild, but beautiful and interesting nonetheless. They are from the yucca that Matthew and I dug out from the front of our house (it was protruding onto the sidewalk and posed a danger to society, according to the City of Louisville). The interesting part is that the flowers bloomed a week after we pulled the plant out of the ground.

And now, I leave you with this hoverfly, contemplating life from his blade of grass:

Settling in

So, a lot's happened since my last post. The major thing is that Matthew and I rented a house in Louisville, which is a quaint old mining community about 15 minutes from Boulder. Turns out we have a colony of plains garter snakes living in our vegetable garden. Vicious garter snakes.

Unfortunately we had to destroy their habitat to put in our vegetable garden, but we created a new habitat for them on the other side of the shed. I hope they are still there, eating pests.

I have been volunteering a few times a week at a bird banding station in North Boulder. We capture the birds in nets, secure a uniquely-numbered band around each bird's leg, and record their sex and their measurements so that we can learn about their longevity and migration routes if the birds are ever recaptured. Here I am with a yellow-breasted chat:

And a yellow warbler:

Yellow warblers are gorgeous!

Here Deanna is wrangling a very pissed magpie:

Bird banding is a lot of fun and I'm learning bird species really fast by doing it. And, I get to see some gorgeous sunrises when I get up at 5:00:

Of course, I've been working too. The other day I saw a bobcat on my way in to do field work. It was just about the coolest thing ever. It was stalking something in a field, and Christian and I watched it for about ten minutes. Unfortunately it was too far away to take a picture, but I could see it pretty clearly through binoculars. I also saw a fox on the road. Plus, this abandoned car ridden by bullet holes in the middle of nowhere (sorry, it would have been much more interesting if I had pictures of the animals I saw. But beat up old cars don't run away):

I do have one picture of some wild animals. These are mule deer, and they are everywhere. They wander through the city of Boulder, eating the wealthy people's carefully pruned shrubs. These fellows are up by Nederland.

This week I am going to be getting up before sunrise to do bird surveys, and I will be sure to empty the card on my camera so that it will be ready if I see any more bobcats. Or the ever elusive mountain lion. Stay tuned!

I've been slackin' on my bloggin'

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while; I was back in Michigan last weekend for Matthew's graduation, and work's been keeping me busy. Here are some things that have happened since I posted last:

Nederland got hit with about a foot of snow last week.

The morning after the snow storm, I woke up and the sunrise had turned the low-laying clouds and the mountains bright pink:

Here are the bunkhouses, all cozy-looking in the snow and morning light:

The reservoir turned into a mirror that morning, smooth as glass:

This week, we were out in the field again, setting up some cowbird monitoring points. This is Douglas fir cone. I have been learning my western tree species.

Another random pond, full of chorus frogs. We were hoping to see boreal toads, an endangered species, but alas, none yet. We will be doing systematic surveys for them a little later, after the end of the spring bird migration.

In attempting to find Ponderosa pine forest that had been selectively thinned in which to place our cowbird points, we were led to this lodgepole pine forest that had been "patch-cut" (misleading GIS layers). Patch-cutting basically means that they go into an area with a machine that chews up everything in sight and spits it out. The air was unbelievably fragrant with pine resin.

I think I'm going to have to pick up on my adventures again later, as I need to get up to Longmont to look at some places to rent. Matthew's coming in this weekend and hopefully we'll find a place to live soon. So I'll sign off for now, but I have lots more pictures to share with you later.