Colorado Birds, A New Quilt Beginning and a Naughty Squirrel

  I love this time of year in Colorado. Actually, let me clarify: I love the migrating birds, but I hate the chilly, rainy weather. I want to sit outside to watch the birds and not take pictures through a window. Oh well. All the feeders are up as well as the birdbath and Bill has the waterfalls in the pond up and running - so more birds are stopping for a visit.

The Mountain Chickadees delight us all summer long. Happy little birds!

Every year we hope the Western Tanagers will stay around, but they don't. I'm happy to have so many for the couple of weeks they stay.

This was a special treat - a Black-chinned Hummingbird.

Lousy picture, but look at that beautiful neck.

Usually the Bushtits arrive in a large group and quickly move through but this year we have had one who seems to be sticking around.

No this Horned Lark was not in the yard. We spotted him at the new RC Car Track Bill found.

We have lots of American Goldfinches who must have followed us home from Florida. We usually only see one or two this time of year...

...but the trees have been decorated with them the past couple of days. The Lesser Goldfinches have just started arriving.

As usual, we have more than our share of House Finches.

Pretty American Goldfinch.

We have two kinds of jays - Blue Jays and Scrub Jays. This is a Blue Jay.

I can't help it - we love the Western Tanagers!

This is an unusual House Finch. It is a male, probably first year, with yellow-orange coloring.

 We've seen the mature male Bullock's Oriole several times. This is a younger male with the black bib and black cap. Yes, that's rain in the picture.

He likes the blossoms on our bushes.

I don't spend ALL my time looking at the birds. I've started a new quilt - Amish with a Twist. It was initially a block-of-the-month and I'm working on the first installment. This is 2 of the first 12 squares.

I'm having a running battle with the squirrels. I heard that cayenne pepper will keep them away. See how good it works?

Fallout in the Baker-Cruff Backyard!

We had an amazing afternoon yesterday birding in our own backyard! I wonder if the recent storm didn't have something to do with it - maybe keeping the birds at a lower elevation away from the snow.

This is a new Life Bird for both Bill & me. It is a Virginia's Warbler as evidenced by the two bold yellow patches, complete eye ring and the small red patch on top of his head. This was a small, quickly moving bird and I took lots of pictures as I knew it was something I had not seen before.

You can see the red head patch in this shot.

I thought this one was especially cute as he peeked out from the bushes.

The Broad-tailed Hummingbirds were thick. I had to refill the feeder first thing this morning.

This one had me stumped for awhile - but I have decided it is a Hermit Thrush. It was a very small, round bird and I did not see him hang his wings down like American Robin's do. He stayed on the ground hiding under the bushes.

This time of the year, we watch for the return of the Western Tanagers and yesterday we were happily rewarded for our vigil.

He really tried to hide behind the power lines.

We'd had lots of Bushtits - tiny grey birds that are almost too quick to photograph.

...and we have had dozens of Chipping Sparrows flying through the area.

This was a lovely surprise - a beautiful male Bullock's Oriole! He must have been traveling with the Western Tanager. I see more and more evidence of similar colored birds migrating together.

A great day of birding right here at home! The snow storm was almost worth it!

The Rest of the Trip HOME

 Driving from Ocala to Colorado Springs is usually a 1700 mile trip. We added an additional 1000 miles with our birding excursions - but it was worth every mile - one of our best vacations.

We knew we were getting closer to Colorado when we starting seeing antelope and mule deer. 

There were lots of Meadowlarks on the wires - and in the fields.

 One of my favorite Texas birds is the Scissor-tail Flycatcher and we saw a lot of them along the way.

I wish I knew my hawks better. I think this is a Swainson's Hawk - but can never be sure.

We finally arrived home to find that Spring in Colorado had waited for us. The trees and bushes were bare and there was cold white stuff coming out of the sky. But after a couple of days, things started looking up.

Our faithful House Finches returned as soon as we filled the feeders and we had a new visitor - a cute little gray Bushtit.

They have long tails for their small bodies and are about the size of a Chickadee.

We had about a half dozen flitting around in the bushes - but I think they've left for higher ground now.

I always enjoy the Western Scrub Jays.

I heard there were orioles passing through so I put orange slices in the trees - but you can see the result.

We had a couple of Western Tanagers but I failed to get any decent pictures. One of our first chores was to get the pond up and running. We couldn't believe it when we discovered we still had fish! AND, five or six baby fish!

Bill rebuilt the falls and I think they look great. The jug was even on sale. Check out our nifty new pond plant. It really looks cool - and it was under $30! The trees and bushes are finally starting to leaf, I've planted some colorful flowers and the weather is once again beautiful. Life is good.

ANA Summer Seminar

Son John was in town last week to teach a class on Colonial Numismatics at the ANA Summer Seminar at Colorado College. His co-instructor was Erik Goldstein, numismatic curator at Colonial Williamsburg.

The boys look like they could be brothers. Despite their casual look, they are very professional and extremely knowledgeable. I attended a couple of sessions and the class couldn't get enough. It was fascinating! I'm very proud of them both.

During the week, Johnny joined us for dinner several times and brought friends from the seminar with him and we all had a great time.

The weather has been beautiful, so we spend a lot of time outside. Mr. Robin had just taken a bath in the pond.

The juvenile Robins have fledged. Look at his speckled breast - it almost looks like a different bird.

We've seen a couple of Black-headed Grosbeaks at the feeders.

The Lesser Goldfinches are plentiful and there are always several at the feeders or getting a drink from the birdbath. The Lesser variety is smaller than the American Goldfinch and has more greenish-black on its back.

A butterfly stops to enjoy the yellow flowers.

I love the colors in this shot.

On one of our walks over in the park, we saw a large group of these tiny non-descript grey birds flitting around in the pine scrub. I've decided it is a Bushtit. I'm sure we've seen them before, but this is the first time I've really identified one.

We hadn't been out geocaching in a while, so decided to locate a couple of new caches that have recently been placed in Palmer Park. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunt where someone hides a container then publishes the coordinates (http://www.geocaching.com/) and other cachers try to find it. Inside the cache, there is always a paper log to sign and date. Some of the larger caches have trinkets you can trade or travel bugs you move along to another cache. Everything gets recorded on the website. World wide, there are over a million caches. This is a very popular, family friendly sport that gets you outside in the fresh air.

This is a picture of GZ (geocache talk for ground zero) the place where our GPS unit indicates the first stash is located. Once there, it can be anywhere up to about 25 feet from GZ - and can be on the ground, in a tree or hidden in a hole in the rock ledge. They cannot be buried. I was down to the right with the GPS indicating I was within 5 feet - as the crow flies. Elevation is not part of the formula - so we had to climb up on the rocks another 15 to 20 feet to get 3 feet closer.



Then we look for something out of place - or a likely location to hide a very small container. We found a small pill box behind the rock. Inside was the log where we signed our geocache name (gailandbill) to show we found it.

While walking, we found another geode - a rock that is hollow inside - perfect to hide a cache in. We took it home and Bill made the hole a little wider and we put a small pillbox that I covered with camouflage-colored duck tape inside. We named it Bublenut (the GPS unit only has space for a 7 letter name, so we dropped the other "b" in "bubble") and hid it in plain site just off a trail in Palmer Park - on the ground with a couple of other rocks. The hollow rock is the one on the upper left. Inside is the log and instructions - just in case someone finds it by accident. Non-geocachers are called "muggles" like in the Harry Potter books. Bublenut was published after dark on July 4th and the FTF (first-to-find) located it at first light the next morning.

Back in the park, the hummingbirds are thick. My challenge is trying to get a picture where the light is at just the right angle that the iridescent colors show.

This little guy has a bright red gorget (throat) but it looks black unless it is reflecting the sun.

I also saw another Violet-green Swallow perched in a tree begging to have his picture taken. Beautiful bird!

Son John left yesterday to fly back to New York City where the temperatures are over 100 degrees and the humidity is just as high. Here in Colorado Springs, today is cool with highs around 60 and humidity at 15%. A cold front came through last night with hail the size of golf balls and lots of rain - but today the skies are clear and blue. I think I'll take a hike!