Homeward bound…

I had a hope for one more good outing here in Colorado before I fly home this afternoon, but I can hear the wind howling outside as I sip my coffee and wait for the sun to come up, and I don’t know if or where there might be places where the wind is blocked, as is often the case along parts of the river in Estabrook Park, so I don’t have much hope of getting any new pictures today. Thus I might as well write this post now with the rest of the pictures I managed yesterday, and get back to business as usual tomorrow morning.

As we started are walk back from a great visit to downtown Golden yesterday afternoon, I was thrilled to spot my first Cooper’s hawk in Colorado. Even better, it seemed quite content on that perch, so I was able to sneak pretty close for a nice portrait, and it didn’t even bother to put its second foot down.

As I mentioned yesterday, my sister lives on the outskirts of town, and the last stretch of road to her place runs through a bit of a valley, and check out this pair I found perched on a power line that runs along one side. I have often thought that the size and shape of a perched American kestrel is quite reminiscent of a mourning dove, but I didn’t realize that they will also perch together as doves do. Well, at least these two did. They were at least a couple hundred yards away, so well beyond the realistic range of my gear, but I think you can get the idea.

The best treat of the whole trek was finding this Townsend’s solitaire (Myadestes townsendi) perched in almost the same spot I had seen it last year when I was out here without my camera. “Thanks, Sweety!” In fact, the memory of spotting it on the same walk home and not being able to take a picture was the whole inspiration for hauling all that weight along on this supposed “ski” trip. Even better, our trip this year is a couple of months later than last year, so I had a lot more light to work with this time. Last time, we were well into twilight, and I resorted to asking my brother to see if he could also make out the slight light stripe on its wing that I thought I was seeing.

Since I had two nice pictures of the mountain chickadee from yesterday morning, here’s a second look at that little cutie.

Finally, the valley continues past my sister’s place, and here are a few mule deer I could see farther up the valley when I got there.

As I also mentioned yesterday, I won’t be home in time for our weekly wildlife walk this morning, but John Kasper has graciously offered to lead today, so don’t hesitate to join him and see who’s knew in Estabrook since I was there last Thursday.

Also, my presentation at North Shore School for Seniors is Tuesday afternoon, so come on out if you’ve always wanted to see this show live.

Lastly, thanks to my sister and her husband for hosting us for this awesome trip, and also to my brother and other sister for putting up with my little hobby.