Birds Sightings Wildlife
August 31, 2020

August 31, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:15 AM Temperature: 53 degrees Sky: Sunny and blue (haze returning), light breeze A Day of Mistaken Identity My frustration mounts with another fabulous walking day and few birds or critters to capture. I’m altering my routes and taking my time to closely study the trees but not much is turning up. The herons are no longer hanging around their nest and when I went past the Osprey nest no one was home there either. I shot a bunch of long shots at some birds bouncing around the river bank but the results were unusable either for posting…

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Birds Sightings Wildlife
August 30, 2020

August 30, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:00 AM Temperature: 62 degrees Sky: Sunny and blue, hard breeze Thanks to a decent rain storm yesterday and a “Cool Front” passing through the wildfire haze that has been plaguing the area is gone – at least for today. A Day of Mistaken Identity I did not get a lot of opportunities to shoot many birds this morning. The cool weather probably made them all sleep in. I try to find “new” birds for posting to this blog so we all don’t get sick of Ospreys, Owls and Cormorants. Even with only a few shots taken I…

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Birds Sightings Wildlife
August 28, 2020

August 28, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:40 AM Temperature: 74 degrees Sky: Sun filtered by light wildfire haze, hard breeze Still hazy this morning even with the sometimes considerable breeze/wind that was kicking up. One thing in the wind’s favor is that it brought out a group (don’t know when to use Flock) of four Osprey reeling high up in the sky obviously enjoying the currents. My guess is that it was a family unit but I can’t back that up with any evidence. The thing that really caught my eye was one of the birds had something in its grasp that was pretty…

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Birds Landscapes Sightings Wildlife
August 26, 2020

August 26, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:45 AM Temperature: 66 degrees Sky: Sun filtered by light wildfire haze, light breeze We got going earlier than yesterday but still a little delayed because of the haze blocking the rising sun. The haze is much better today – parts of the sky are actually blue, the few clouds that were present were discernable and the Wet Mountains were clearly visible from Highway 96 as we drove out to Lake Pueblo State Park. To sum it up – it was a good day to walk. The birds seemed to be more active today as well and I…

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Critters Sightings Wildlife
August 25, 2020

August 25, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 9:30AM Temperature: 76 degrees Sky: Sun filtered by wildfire haze, no breeze Unforeseen circumstances got us out to a late and rather warm start this morning. I had decided to just do the dog walking portion of the standard outing and then bag it for the rest of the day. It was very quiet at Lake Pueblo State Park in terms of both wildlife and human life – probably due to the rapidly rising temperature. In fact I wasn’t even going to write a post about today except that I happened to spot a Canyon Lizard clinging to…

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Birds Sightings Wildflowers Wildlife
August 24, 2020

August 24, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 8:30AM Temperature: 66 degrees Sky: Sun filtered by thick wildfire haze, light breeze Lately we southern Colorado residents have been treated to large quantities of wildfire smoke darkening our skies. Currently there are five fires burning in Colorado (North) and if that wasn’t enough smoke the jet stream is adding smoke from the countless fires consuming California. This situation has kept Whisper and I stuck indoors for the last couple of days. Cabin fever won out today and we waited until after 8 AM to venture out. Overall that turned out to be a good decision. The sky…

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Birds Landscapes Sightings Wildlife
August 20, 2020

August 20, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:10 AM Temperature: 62 degrees Sky: Sunshine; Light Wildfire Haze; no breeze Another great morning for a walk. There was a lot of bird activity though generally at great distance. The Ospreys were busy gliding through the sky and the Starlings were all grouped up together in the tree tops. My only good photo opportunity came when I checked the Barn Swallow nest under the eves of the informational kiosk at the Anticline Fishing Pond and found three pretty large nestlings keeping an eye out for incoming grub. I tried to get a shot right then but somehow…

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Birds Sightings Wildlife
August 19, 2020

August 19, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:25 AM Temperature: 62 degrees Sky: Sunshine; Clouds and Wildfire Haze; no breeze We started late again today because the sun was having trouble rising above some eastern clouds and a heaping helping of wildfire haze. It finally managed to cast decent light on the area but to no great benefit to my photographic expectations. I guess the coolest thing I saw was a belted Kingfisher on the opposite bank of the Arkansas River – too far away for a good shot. I was glad to see “him” because I have not seen one of those for some…

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Birds Critters Sightings Wildlife
August 18, 2020

August 18, 2020

Environment:Start Time: 7:10 AM Temperature: 58 degrees Sky: Sunshine; Some Wildfire Haze; no breeze Mornings are finally getting back to the normal bright sunshine that Whisper and I prefer for our outings. Wildfire haze is also diminishing though I don’t know how long that will last. Even better, I had a good number of wildlife encounters to share in this post. OK it was only three but that is a good step up from recent walks. First I came across the turkeys that have been hanging around the Osprey Picnic Area lately. This time it was only one hen and…

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