Pelicans are back

Years and years ago I saw my first white pelican, back when the park's bird checklist had it listed as "accidental".  There were 5 of them that summer.  The next summer they came back with a couple of friends.  Then there were 15, then each year more, until, one summer there were more than 100 where the Colorado River enters Shadow Mountain.  I don't think there have been that many in years since then.  Now, each spring we look for them to arrive. 

This morning, on our way to town, we saw a single pelican in the area, over by the islands in Shadow Mountain Lake.  On our way home there were about a half dozen.  Over the next few days I expect we'll see more and more.  I'll get a photo tomorrow - Max had to say home today, so we'll give him a good ride tomorrow and we'll go down to where the pelicans are, and we'll see if there are any yet at Windy Gap, near Granby.

 

We also saw 4 of them in the air in Granby, over the little pond by the railroad overpass.  One of them was a male in breeding plumage -  I could see the "

 

In the news last night there was an interesting piece about pelicans on the Front Range.  Somebody dumped a bunch of goldfish in Teller Lake, near Boulder.  The goldfish thrived.  In the news the goldfish were so thick it was almost more fish than water.  The Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife has been considering how they should clear out the goldfish.  One of the options was electroshock, where the use electric probes to shock the fish and pick out the "bad" fish, leaving the good ones to come to in a little bit.  Another was to poison the lake, then after the water was safe to restock with "good" fish.  Well, a bunch of pelicans have come in and are taking care of the problem.  They arrived at Teller Lake and are eating the goldfish.  One of the lake's neighbors showed how there are not very many fish to see at the lake now.  Sometimes Nature takes care of things in a better way than we would. 

Here's a photo of the 3 that were napping & grooming.  I never saw the bill on the one in the middle - it was deep asleep or ignoring the goings on around it.  The other 2 have the 3"x3"breeding bump on their bills.  Both male & female get them during the breeding season, then they fall off.  With the telephoto lens they look a LOT closer to that shoreline than they really are.

Bear Tracks!

This morning, while Tom was doing some spring wake-up tasks for the motorhome, he noticed some tracks.   He thought they might be bear tracks and came in to tell me about them. 

 

When I went out to look at them, camera in hand, I immediately went back for a ruler.  These were not wimpy little bear tracks - they were good size tracks and I wanted to document just how big.  The front paw is almost a full 5 inches across.  And the back foot is 8 inches long with the claws; 7 without.  It had just walked from (across?) the road and through the yard, right next to the motorhome, headed deeper into Columbine.  I think it's fairly safe to assume it came out of the park.

 

I think there's a good chance it's a large male.  A rule of thumb bear hunters use is to measure the width of the front paw, add one, and that's how long (tall) your bear is.  So 5 +1 gives me a 6 foot bear that might weigh around 250.  Actually it's probably lighter since it's still spring, and a lot of their natural food sources haven't sprouted/bloomed/fruited for them and they're still looking to start regaining the weight they lost over the winter.

 

I'm hoping this bear finds some good natural food sources.  We keep our garbage can in the garage, which is normally a safe practice.  If the bears get hungry enough they will break doors to get to the trash can.  There have been some interesting reports on the news recently, including one where the bear came into a garage (with a trash can) and accidentally closed the door it had used to come in.  Then it broke the overhead door window (and more) to get out of the garage.

 

 

Getting the mail

I remember when getting the mail was a matter of going to the front door and grabbing whatever was in the box on the wall just outside the door.  Other times it was on the floor in front of the door, if there was a mail slot.  But all that was years ago, in a different life.   From the time I left San Francisco in 1979, mail has been as close as across the yard, in a box on a post, to a few miles away at the post office. 

When I left the city behind I also left behind (in many ways) the “delivered right to your door” that city people take for granted.  We have to know whether a package will be shipped through the US Mail, or a parcel service before we provide an address.  The post office will only deliver to our PO Box; the parcel services will deliver only to our door.  At the beginning, before we learned the key words to use, it caused a lot of problems.  We didn’t get the payment coupon book for our mortgage because the office people with the mortgage company didn’t “get” that we don’t get mail at our house.  When it seemed like it had been too long I called and they told me it had been returned as undeliverable.  They admitted they had sent it to the street address.  I explained, again, that we only get mail at the PO Box, and they got it updated.  Had I not called, we could have lost the house before it was even ours.  Again and again I have to tell businesses that we do not get mail at the street address.  For the most part the person I’m talking to doesn’t really understand. 

Why am I talking about this?  Because on our very indirect drive home from the post office today, we enjoyed Pasque flowers at their peak (in the place they bloom early) and saw a marmot, as well as a cow and yearling moose pair up a different road.  How boring it would be to get our mail at our door.  That short mile and a half (more if we wander) has so many possibilities for exciting things to see.

 

Osprey Synchonized bathing

I told you yesterday I'd be posting more photos to Flickr and the osprey video to YouTube.  Both are done.  The link to that video is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4kqLlKWVV4

I hope you enjoy it.  If you have a camera, carry it with you.  You can always decide not to take a photo, but if you left it home you have no choice.  That's my biggest secret ... really.

 

Critters!

I made a run to Granby today to get some stuff for tomorrow's cooking effort.  I'm going to make ravioli - meat and veggie versions.  I'm cheating with the sauce & bought a couple of jars of Classico pasta sauce, making sure they both contain no meat.  We'll be going to a potluck with meat eaters, at least one vegetarian and some folks who like both kinds of food.

On the way home I saw a variety of wildlife.  First it was the pronghorn antelope.  They sometimes show up near the base of Coffee Divide (we drop from our area to a lower level where Granby is surrounds by ranch lands) in the spring through fall months.  There was a small herd, with a couple of the females closer to the road than the rest of them.

Then, as I came past one of the marinas, I glanced to my right and saw a Great Blue Heron hunting along the edge of Lake Granby.  I think it may have been a male in breeding plumage - see the long plumes on his head?  I got off a few shots and continued toward home. 

 

A little further along was a flock of Western Grebes.  We first saw them yesterday.  Tom tried to count them yesterday and there was a group of about 40, another group of at least 30, and some others scattered between the larger groups.  Neither of us remembers ever seeing more than just a handful at a time before.  I'll keep checking on them - I'd love to see their mating dance.  Of course, they could be just resting on their way to their breeding area.  I can hope, though.

Then, the most special sight of the day ... a pair of ospreys bathing along the edge of the lake.  I got a few still shots and a short video.  I'll post the video on YouTube once I go through it and see if I need to do any editing.  The funny thing is, I've never caught them bathing before, but yesterday we saw one osprey bathing in the same spot.  Right after than I saw one dive and come out with a fish, but the photo came out too blurry to share.

The "pelicans" I thought I saw turned out to be leftover piles of snow along the edge of the lake that were just about the right size ... but, still no pelicans yet this spring.

 

All on all, not bad for a return from the grocery store, wouldn't you say?

Wacky Weather

Springtime in the Rockies can be exciting.  But, it's almost never boring.  Yesterday, for example, we had sunshine, wind, rain, snow and graupel (soft hail/snow).  None of that surprised me.  It's springtime.  However, just before bedtime, when I stepped out the back door to put the dog on his trolley, I almost landed on my butt.  The day had been humid enough that instead of drying out the last rain/snow had frozen in thin later of ice on the wood deck.  Since I had on moccasins, I had no traction.  Good thing I holding Max back (he really wants to bolt through the door ahead of us so we hold him back) and going slowly.  Lucky for him he took my advice to go "easy" down and back up the stairs.  Sometimes he jumps the bottom 2-3 stairs and if the snow or ice is slick enough his back legs will slip through and he falls back.  It all worked out this time.  If I'd had to go down to rescue him I might have slipped and fallen, too.

First Post

Not a very imaginative title, but it's honest.  I've sent "travelogue" emails to a large list of people for quite some time.  Lately a number of issues have arisen.  Some people are on an email server that blocks some of my emails (too long, too many photos, or both seems to be the main trigger).  Some people don't really do email, other than to receive it on a "printing mailbox" (a printer hooked to a phone line that prints emails and does nothing else).  So, I already know I can't please everybody.  Some people have been encouraging me to start a blog.

I polled the people on my emailing list (I call it my "spam list" because it has a lot of names on it) to see how they felt about email vs blog.  A number of them said whatever I decided to do would work for them.  One was eager for my blog to start, but several preferred the status quo.  It is easier to just wait for an email to pop up in your inbox. 

So, at least for now, I'm going to try continuing the emails and posting to a blog.  The emails may get a little shorter (who wants to duplicate the effort?) but they'll continue.  I will continue to post photos to Flickr  (www dot Flickr dog com slash photos slash mooseduds)  My account there will let me post many more photos than I can attach to an email.  I'll attach some to the emails, but perhaps limit it to 5 maximum per email to keep it easy on your inboxes.  I may drop the size a bit; one of you told me you'd like to see smaller picture files.  I don't know how small you want them, but I'll go down one size (to 800x600).

So, if you'd like to follow this blog, bookmark it and check in often.  If you're on my "spam list" you'll get an email when I post something significant.  I may not email you when it's a minor "weather report" type of post.

Your feedback will help me improve as we go along ...