WE DO NOT DESERVE BEAVERS. Well, OK. American beavers can be complicated neighbors. They sometimes interfere with our plans, tunneling into canal banks, flooding farmers’ fields and blocking and rerouting waterways. They can destroy infrastructure and take down power lines. They harvest landscape plantings. But oh, the beneficial things they do for us while they …
EARLY MORNING, BEFORE the sun even hinted at dawn, I walked the dog along our suburban sidewalk, with numerous streetlights illuminating our way. I spotted movement ahead — a sizable four-legged form padding silently away, a long tail draped in a graceful curve nearly touching the ground. That’s all I saw but I didn’t need …
By Tina Mitchell In 1961, I was a 10-year-old kid in the suburbs of Chicago and Walt Disney had me smack dab in his sights. “The Wonderful World of Disney” had become “must see TV” every Sunday evening in my house. With “Bambi,” he had brought wildfire to life (and, rightly or wrongly, mother-killing hunters …
By Tina Mitchell Among the last species of breeding birds to arrive from their South American wintering grounds, Common Nighthawks zip and zoom through the dusk and dawn skies starting in late May and early June. A nighthawk has a big head with large eyes set on each side; its small bill opens to reveal …
By Tina Mitchell Recommended Books Since many of us have some extra time these days, thanks to the pandemic, it might be time to revisit (or read for the first time!) a few great books about nature. I’ve listed a number of my favorite books about nature—classics that have truly stood the test of time. …
By Tina Mitchell Common and conspicuous winter visitors, Dark-eyed Juncos frequent Colorado’s seed feeders and rural roadsides. John Jay Audubon once referred to the junco as “the little Snowbird,” since in many places it showed up only in the winter. This junco’s scientific name – Junco hyemalis – as well as its common name derive …
By Tina Mitchell Deep snowpack in Colorado’s snowy, high-altitude coniferous forests chases most humans to lower altitudes during the winter. (At least during a good winter.) Yet the wildlife denizens of the deep snows – Canada lynx and snowshoe hares – continue their delicate dance unabated. Lynx feed primarily on snowshoe hares. More so than …
By Tina Mitchell You have to know that a bird loves cold if it willingly migrates to South Park for the winter. Of all of the hawks in the Buteo genus, only the Rough-legged Hawk is so thoroughly linked with cold climates. In North America, Rough-legged Hawks breed primarily on the tundra of the Arctic …
By Tina Mitchell As we waited to pull onto U.S. Hwy. 50 from Coaldale on a September afternoon, a scampering movement low on the asphalt caught our attention. Four tarantulas skittered across the road toward the river. Whoa – tarantulas? In Colorado? What were those hairy arachnids up to here? Autumn looms right around the …
By Tina Mitchell
Mantids (for instance, the “praying mantis”) are some of the most distinctive and well-recognized of all the insect groups. The front prey-grasping legs capture everyone’s attention when they spot a mantid. The top of the thorax (the prothorax) is very elongated to support these prominent forelegs. Mantids have excellent vision, with the prominent eyes widely spaced on a triangular head that can twist, providing an almost 360-degree range of view, and a sometimes creepy look.
By Tina Mitchell Spiders too often get a bad rap in mainstream Western culture. “They’re aggressive.” Unless you’re an insect, most try just to avoid you. “They want to bite you.” No, only if you give them no other choice but to defend themselves. And while spiders have fangs, many are not long enough to …
By Tina Mitchell
A favorite memory of my father starts with a cold, clear winter evening. I’m seven; we’re bundled up against the Midwest cold. I’m leaning back on him to stare up at the twinkling stars. He’s pointing out constellations and I’m feeling safe, loved and enthralled by the cosmos. Is it any wonder I love the winter night sky?
Winter constellations include some of the brightest and easiest to recognize. Circumpolar constellations – those that circle the North Pole – offer a good starting point. Ursa Major, the Great Bear, is one of the best known. Facing north, you’ll see the Big Dipper, which makes up the bear’s body and tail. These bright stars – four outlining the “bowl,” three tracing the “handle” – create one of the easiest patterns to spot in the night sky.
The Big Dipper guides you to other circumpolar constellations. For instance, Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, parallels its big brother with the Little Dipper, also containing seven stars – four in the bowl, three in the handle. Together, the dippers appear to be pouring their contents into each other. Polaris, the North Star, lies at the very end of the Little Dipper’s handle. To find Polaris, extend a line between the two outer stars of the bowl of the Big Dipper about five times the distance between them and you’ve arrived. Polaris doesn’t point exactly north, but it’s less than a degree off – about the width of your pinkie finger held against the sky – and has been vital for navigation around the Northern Hemisphere for thousands of years.
Returning to the Big Dipper, trace a line from the bowl of the Big Dipper through Polaris. Continue an equal distance beyond, and you’ll find Cassiopeia, queen of Ethiopia, sitting on her throne. A very distinct shape, Cassiopeia looks like a “W” or “M” in the sky, depending on where she is in relation to the North Pole.
Not all of the interesting constellations circle the pole, though. Most others can only be seen during certain seasons. To see the Northern Hemisphere’s winter-only constellations, turn your back to the circumpolar stars and face south. Arguably the most famous seasonal constellation, Orion, the Hunter, provides an easy-to-spot starting point. Orion’s Belt anchors the constellation – three bright stars in a straight line. Orion’s sword – another row of three stars – hangs down from his belt. Actually, the middle “star” looks a bit fuzzy and isn’t a star at all. It’s the Orion Nebula, a vast and bright cloud of gas and dust.
By Tina Mitchell
In July, 2016, a lightning strike sparked the Hayden Pass Fire in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Within days, it had exploded into a 26-square-mile conflagration that forced area residents to evacuate. As they prepared to head out, firefighters raced in. Following close behind, a team of more than 30 specially trained wildlife staff and volunteers had one goal in mind – to save a fish from this fire. Not just any fish, but a genetically unique subspecies of greenback cutthroat trout found only in the South Prong of Hayden Creek, near Coaldale.
When they arrived at the lowest mile of the creek, the team found decent conditions. The fish were going about their ordinary pursuits. But for Greg Policky, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) aquatic biologist heading the rescue effort, the biggest concern wasn’t necessarily the fire itself but the potential after-effects such as flash flooding and sediments or ash inundating the stream. By the end of the day, the wildlife team had removed 196 greenbacks from the South Prong. The Roaring Judy Fish Hatchery, between Gunnison and Crested Butte, took 158 of the fish. The remainder were released in Newlin Creek, a small stream in the Wet Mountains south of Cañon City. The team also left several hundred fish in the South Prong, hoping that any subsequent monsoon rains would spare the drainage so that these remaining fish could survive in their natural habitat.
Why put so much effort into the South Prong greenback cutthroat trout? Once widespread in the Arkansas and South Platte river drainages along the Front Range from Wyoming to New Mexico, the greenback subspecies of the cutthroat trout currently inhabits less than one percent of its historic range. Focusing on this one of the four subspecies of cutthroat trout found in Colorado, extensive genetic work in 2012 revealed that this native cutthroat subspecies now existed only in a four-mile stretch of a single stream – Bear Creek, along the eastern flank of Pikes Peak. This same genetic work revealed another surprise. The greenbacks in the South Prong of Hayden Creek – and now in the Roaring Judy hatchery and Newlin Creek – contain genes found in no other living fish. In fact, their genes match only two museum specimens in the Smithsonian Institution, collected in 1889 by ichthyologist David Starr Jordan from Twin Lakes, near Leadville. (See this column in the November, 2016, archive of Colorado Central at www.coloradocentralmagazine.com for more background on this subspecies.)
By Tina Mitchell
The dog stood still as a statue, nose to the floor. Maybe he was watching an insect. But usually he’d just check it out and move on or else snarf it down. This behavior was different. Curious, I walked over. Uh, oh – the boy had zeroed in on a scorpion. A first for us both. But over our 15 years in that house, we found a number of scorpions inside, especially in the winter. We eventually realized that most arrived on the firewood we stacked near the woodstove. When we moved the stack to the garage, the number of winter-visiting scorpions dropped.
Scorpions fall in the class Arachnida, making them distant cousins of spiders. Some people think that arachnids are insects – not so. Insects have six legs and three body segments (head, thorax, abdomen) while arachnids have eight legs and two body segments (cephalothorax – a combined head and thorax – and abdomen). Three species of scorpions call Colorado home; the most common one in central Colorado is the striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus). In fact, the striped bark scorpion is the most common species in the U.S. It grows to 2.75 inches long, with two dark stripes down the length of its back. A scorpion has an elongated abdomen that ends with its signature stinger, often curled over its back. Its enlarged appendage-like pedipalps on the cephalothorax form claws for grasping prey. Also on the cephalothorax is a pair of simple eyes at the midline and 2–5 pairs along each side. Its light tan or yellow color suits its environment well, providing natural camouflage from both prey and predators. C. vittatus has a very dynamic diet, including fast-moving insects and smaller arachnids. In turn, it finds itself on the menus of birds, reptiles, some mammals, and even larger arachnids.
By Tina Mitchell
Water hopscotching over rocks in a creek bed. Leaves crackling underfoot. A squirrel chatter-scolding as you walk past its tree. The slap of a beaver tail as its owner disappears under water while you move past its pond. The wind howling and swirling the new-fallen snow. Music in nature takes many forms, many tones, many timbres. But the featured artists in Nature’s symphony are the avian maestros. Birds have the greatest sound-producing capabilities of all vertebrates, generating songs that penetrate dense cover and carry long distances. Moreover, the vocal repertoires of birds rank among the richest and most varied of any in the animal kingdom. How do birds make such complex music?
By Tina Mitchell
Glittering, feathered jewels of green, orange, dark purple and red charge and chase each other with long, thin, pointed daggers, sputtering like electric sparks. A scene from an animated science-fantasy movie? No, it’s July at Central Colorado’s hummingbird feeders and wildflowers.
By Tina Mitchell
While birding in Arizona, we had been searching for an hour or so, scanning among the treetops for warblers. Whenever I’d look down to give my neck a break, I’d notice colorful butterflies wafting lazily along. Why were we working so hard to see tiny flitting birds when butterflies – equally colorful, less frenetic – were practically tripping us? Stunning colors, bold patterns, frequent pauses at or below eye level – how hard could identifying those lovelies be?
Yeah. Well. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Forewing, hindwing; upperside, underside; male, female – each different, often dramatically so. Once you try to get a good look, you realize that butterflies are hardly slow. Add the fact that our binoculars, so wonderful for birding, couldn’t focus close enough to provide even the slightest chance to ID a butterfly, and you have a recipe for mega-frustration.
So why did my husband and I volunteer as butterfly monitors on a three-mile trail through a variety of habitats last summer? I really can’t tell you.
By Tina Mitchell
Who’s awake? Me too! Who’s awake? Me too! In the bleak midwinter, this series of five rhythmic, muffled, slightly eerie hoots – all on one pitch – wafts through the darkness. The sentinel taking attendance is the Great Horned Owl. Measuring nearly 2 feet from head to tail, the Great Horned is the largest and most widespread owl in North America. Seen most commonly perched upright in trees or on power poles at dusk, this owl is heavily barred in brown and black. Feather tufts (not horns at all, despite its name) on its large head give rise to its rather inaccurate, albeit catchy, common name. Its enormous yellow eyes are so large that they cannot move in the owl’s head. However, the owl can swivel its head as much as 270 degrees to look in any direction. Since Great Horneds hunt at night, locating prey by sound is vital – and this owl has the requisite acute hearing. With a skull nearly as wide as its body, its ears are set relatively far apart and offset from each other a bit, allowing the raptor to triangulate the location of the tiniest sounds even more accurately.
THE NATURAL WORLD
By Tina Mitchell
The sun rises later every morning. Night falls earlier each day. You walk the dog before work in pitch black, hoping that the local coyotes aren’t prowling the darkness a few feet behind you. After work, what’s left of the daylight fades fast and you do outdoor tasks in twilight. You stare into the seemingly interminable darkness, morosely remembering the long, lazy, languid evenings of summer. Is that what’s troublin’ ya, friend?
The approaching winter solstice, this year on Dec. 21, brings the shortest day of the year because it features the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset. Right? Well, actually – no. After the winter solstice, total daylight does increase a minute or two every few days. But those of us who mourn the waning sunlight can look to an earlier milepost. In early December – this year, around December 2 in Central Colorado – we’ll experience the earliest sunset of the year. On that date, sunset holds around 4:43 p.m. for almost two weeks; after that, it inches back a minute later every few days.
by Tina Mitchell In the darkening dusk, my husband said quietly: “Your little friend is back.” I snuck to the window to see one of the local gray foxes heading for the spilled seed under our bird feeders. Such a wary, gorgeous, dainty little predator! October often brings increased sightings of foxes: The young have …
by Tina Mitchell Let’s say you’re a bird. Your breeding area this spring and summer abound with budding plants, fresh fruits, nutritious insects – plenty for you and the kids you raised. But what about the coming fall and winter? To paraphrase The Clash, should you stay or should you go? In Central Colorado, most …
By Tina Mitchell
Bugs Bunny is an imposter. Those extraordinarily long ears and gangly limbs expose him as a hare, not a rabbit. Bugs is not the only victim of rabbit confusion. The early settlers on the plains named the first bunny-like beings they encountered “jackrabbits” – but those critters also were hares, not rabbits. Likewise the adorable, alpine-dwelling pika snagged the name “rock rabbit” – again, not a rabbit.
by Tina Mitchell Bugs Bunny is an imposter. Those extraordinarily long ears and gangly limbs expose him as a hare, not a rabbit. Bugs is not the only victim of rabbit confusion. The early settlers on the plains named the first bunny-like beings they encountered “jackrabbits” – but those critters also were hares, not rabbits. …
by Tina Mitchell When people plan a trip to Colorado, what do they envision? Soaring mountains begging for exploration. Fly-fishing for trout in gold-medal waters. Fresh champagne-powder skiing at one of the state’s stunning resorts or gorgeous backcountry roads. Whitewater rafting on a rushing, pristine stretch of river. Birding. Birding? Okay, probably not that one …
By Tina Mitchell
Okay, I’ll show my age. Anyone else remember the 1980s situation comedy WKRP in Cincinnati? One episode highlighted an ill-fated Thanksgiving advertising campaign featuring domesticated turkeys dropped from a helicopter flying over the city – and plummeting straight to the ground. Covering the event on the ground, reporter Les Nessman wailed, “Oh, the humanity!” If only they had known just a bit about domesticated turkeys, especially in contrast to their wild cousins …
by Tina Mitchell Just after June’s summer solstice, my husband and I were enjoying a lazy morning, drinking coffee and watching television, when movement outside the windows caught my eye. Probably a mule deer heading for a drink from the birdbath, I thought as I stood up to look. Whoa – definitely not a deer. …
by Tina Mitchell Birders are crazy. Well, maybe not every birder. But many qualify, in my opinion. Drive more than 400 miles roundtrip in a snowstorm to see a Streak-backed Oriole from Mexico coming to feeders at Fort Collins? Wacky. Travel 300 miles one way to see a Broad-billed Hummingbird in Grand Junction, a species …
By Tina Mitchell
Spring brings longer, warmer evenings that lure me outside after dinner. Once with our dogs on a postprandial stroll, I noticed the rustling of dried oak leaves. Do oaks grow in this area? Nope, no oaks anywhere near. Instead, a Prairie Rattlesnake sat coiled at the switchback we had all just walked by, signaling us with its eponymous rattles. Why it sent this warning after the dogs and I had passed remains a mystery to me. But I keep that memory with me as reminder call to be a tad more vigilant as the weather warms.
As exothermic (cold-blooded) creatures, snakes rely on heat from the sun and the ground to regulate their body temperatures. During the winter, they hibernate – sometimes gathering in large numbers – in rodent dens or rock crevices. But as daytime temperatures climb to 50 degrees and above, the likelihood of encountering a snake rises too.
By Tina Mitchell
It’s 8 a.m. at the wildlife rehabilitation center where I occasionally volunteer, and the place already bustles with activity. This particular morning, we have 66 orphaned or abandoned baby squirrels to weigh, 66 formulas to blend, 66 babies to hand-feed, 66 babies to clean up and settle back into their cages – all before 11 a.m., when the next round of feedings begins. After a quiet winter at the rehab center, everything kicks into gear with the beginning of breeding season – and the squirrels typically lead that parade. Indeed, in early February I spotted several Fox Squirrels engaged in courtship behavior: chasing, spiraling and chattering around a tree trunk, across the ground, and up another trunk. This can only mean one thing – the spring baby squirrel season arrives this month.
By Tina Mitchell
The alarm buzzer slices through the darkness – 5:15 on a mid-December morning. Take a quick shower, pull on layer after layer of warm clothes, gulp down some breakfast and head out by 6:30. At U.S. Hwy. 50, we point ourselves west to Salida. Along the 18-mile drive, the Arkansas River and Bighorn Sheep Canyon slowly emerge in the pre-dawn light. Off to the annual Salida Christmas Bird Count!
By Tina Mitchell
Every year, I greet autumn with mixed feelings. The crisp days and cool nights seem to sing after the hot days and much-warmer-than-I’d-like nights of late summer. But these wondrous days get noticeably shorter as each passes. Now that the exhausting tasks of breeding season have ended, the birds have gone silent, and many species have headed out for their wintering grounds. But winter species start to reappear, including the high-flying, raucous flocks of Sandhill Cranes heading over the Sangres to stopover spots in the San Luis Valley. Snow provides an occasional ephemeral dusting on the peaks, offering a lovely contrast to the evergreens below treeline. But I also keep a sharp eye on the weather forecasts, dreading the first meaningful snowfall down here. Actually, snow arrives with its own love/hate relationship for me – but that’s a topic for another time.
By Tina Mitchell
Wildfire and wildlife – what’s the first image that comes to your mind? I’m seven years old, sitting in a darkened movie theater, watching the fire scene in the Disney animated classic Bambi. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons and our protagonist deer all flee through scorching embers, swirling smoke, and crashing, flaming branches. That scene seemed to last for hours, although it likely wrapped up in about three minutes. But more than 55 years later, I remember how scared that little girl felt as clearly as if I had just left the theater.
By Tina Mitchell
A soft, descending “phew, phew” alerts me to a Mountain Bluebird in the vicinity; a few seconds later, a female zooms to a tree beyond one of the nestboxes I am monitoring. Inside the box, thin strips of juniper bark woven into a sculptural swirl confirm that this is indeed a Mountain Bluebird nest. Using my telescoping mechanic’s mirror to check, I see one lovely, light blue egg. The female eying me probably started laying her clutch earlier today. I quickly close up the box, move away, make a note on my clipboard and head to the next box.
By Tina Mitchell
It’s spring morning, and I’m out with the dogs shortly after sunrise, heading to the low ridge to the east. It’s a peaceful time for us humans and canines. But once I shift my awareness, I can hear the air crackling with communications. “DEE-DEE-DEE.” (Mountain Chickadee) “CheeriLEE-cheerio cheeriLEE-cheerio.” (American Robin) A repeated dry hiccup-like sound. (Gray Flycatcher) “Zeedle-zeedle-ZEE-chay.” (Black-throated Gray Warbler) “Chup-chup-ZEEEEE (Spotted Towhee) Male songbirds of all species sing as if their lives depend on it. And, in a way, they do.
By Tina Mitchell
Every weekend from mid-March through early August, you’ll find me checking more than 100 nestboxes on our 39 acres in western Fremont County. Remember that scorching, enervating, record-breaking heat of last summer? Yep, I was out there, on foot, each Friday and Saturday afternoon, sweating, plodding – and having a grand time. Why? Monitoring nestboxes affords me glimpses of bird families in the thick of raising their young. If all goes according to plan, for a few weeks each summer two parents spend every minute of daylight protecting their young and delivering protein-rich insect meals to their offspring multiple times an hour. And I get to watch.