Welcome to December everyone! A little less than a month and we’ll be tearing up checks accidentally written out with a ‘2023’ date. Note, as I do not handle the day to day billing, I have to admit I do not even know if the concept of writing a “physical” check still exists. The sand is definitely a blur as it moves through the hourglass and I still have a lot to get done before heading to warmer temps in the south. One of those pressing to-dos is to get converted over to a new computer. My current workhouse was growing long in the tooth. New versions of Lightroom and Photoshop were strangling every last CPU cycle, the Halloween prop related software was starting to complain about old drivers and maybe not related, but the WordPress issues over the last couple of months has been infuriating. The new behemoth has arrived and is a wonder to behold – the lights dim in the house and the local power company has to switch to auxiliary power on ignition (i9 24 core with a graphics card that cost more than my first car). Now the “mountain” of work to migrate all the system configurations, apps, preferences and data. While I’m out of commission bit fiddling, Brad is going to bring you another one of his adventures – this time from the state of “Nil sine Numine”.
Take it away Brad…
One day in late April, Jan and I were in Colorado with a bit of free time on our hands. We had just returned from the whirlwind tour to Devils Tower, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wind Cave (see here). The kids were at work and we had an entire day to explore the mountains outside Denver. I know, I can hear it through the screen, “There are too many mountains to see in just one day.” We weren’t trying to see all of them. Our selection was sort of a virtual dart throw at “stuff” that was close to Denver.
After finishing breakfast at the hotel, Jan and I started driving early. We wanted to enjoy Golden Gate Canyon State Park (GGCSP) without many visitors. The road from Golden, CO to the park was paved, but it was by no means straight. To call it “curvy” might be an understatement. This first road sign might be an indication of what to expect on the way to the park.
I mean, it’s not even in a straight line — it goes sideways! You’d think drivers would exercise caution on a road like that. But NO! We were passed by more than a few vehicles on the way up the mountain, even a “school bus” passed us at one point. By the time we reached the Visitor Center, I really needed to get out of the car to stop the constant motion for a few minutes. I can still get motion sick, even when I’m driving, on these very curvy roads. Think Spirograph on steroids. (Kids go ask your parents what a Spirograph is.)
Hit the jump to find out what lies ahead on Spirograph road.
Little did Jan and I know we would be the only visitors to the park that morning, at least that we could see. The Visitor Center was closed for refurbishment when we arrived. OK, that meant no park maps or flush toilets. My phone struggled to pull up a park map, with only 1G cellular service, to determine where to go next. About a mile up the road was the first picnic area named Kriley Pond. We headed there to see what we could see. For those of you keeping score at home, Kriley Pond sits at an elevation of 8,350 feet. Colorado has the highest average elevation of any of the fifty U.S. states at 6,860 feet above sea level, almost 500 feet above the second-place state, Wyoming. In contrast, my home state of Illinois averages only 618 feet, or 1/11th of Colorado’s average loftiness.
As we pulled into the parking area, I noticed Kriley Pond that was completely frozen over.
It was, after all, April in the mountains of Colorado. That should have been important information for me when we got out of the car. Once parked in the picnic area, I jumped out to ready the cameras. Having Jan’s camera assembled, and in her hands, she took off for the trail head. I started to assemble my camera for the day. Before Jan was more than a few steps from our car, there was a grey-blue streak flying to a fence rail.
A female Mountain Bluebird (Sialia currucoides) graced us with its presence. We had seen flashes of them in other parks, but this was the first time one sat still long enough to click the shutter. The sun hadn’t crested the mountain behind us which kept most of the picnic area in shadows. Remember, I said we arrived early morning.
While taking photos of this pretty little bird, Jan caught a brighter blue flash and said, “Brad!” and pointed to her left. Knowing that if there are girl birds in the area, boy birds can’t be far away. Sure enough . . .
This bright blue male was sitting still, for the moment. He had perched on a metal BBQ grille near one of the picnic tables, just at the edge of the reach of our lenses. We both started clicking off photos as fast as our memory cards could absorb them. I’m not sure if the camera noises spooked him, or he was just a bit ADHLAS (Attention Deficit Hey Look a Squirrel! A common diagnosis at Intrigued) because seconds later the bluebird flew from the grille to a low branch on a pine tree.
I was impressed with the brightness of his blue feathers. However, the female was not as impressed; she appeared to show little interest in the male. Oh sure, she was sort of following him at a safe distance. But the female was also trying to play hard to get by turning her back on the male for a minute. She was also giving us a great shot of the bright blue tramp stamp on her tail.
I don’t think the female was very impressed with his flitting about. The male obviously wasn’t paying enough attention to her. Or was it the other way around?
She turned around long enough to see he was gone, and then quickly departed.
The male, not really paying attention to in the first place, flew towards the beginning of the trail. He perched momentarily on the trail marker sign.
Maybe this was the signal to begin our morning hike. The bluebirds were only at the picnic area for a few minutes. The must have had important bird business because they were off in a flash of blue. Bummer. I turned back to the car to find I had been in such a hurry to catch the bluebirds that I hadn’t even closed the rear hatch. Luckily, we were the only car in the picnic area. Well, other than the park ranger checking the park permit machines and probably wondering if we had a daily park permit or not. Just like with the P-dog adventure a few days earlier (here), I suddenly noticed how cold I was because I hadn’t taken the time to put on my jacket or gloves.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Mountain Bluebird photos, please visit here.
Credits:
Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing. Allyson is still on assignment. Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.
Life Intrigued 