Naturalist Notes

Way down below the snow is an area called the subnivean zone

2012-03-01T15:59:00.001-07:00

“February is pitiless, and it is boring. That parade of red numerals on its page adds up to zero: birthdays of politicians, a holiday reserved for rodents, what kind of celebrations are those?” – Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

February seems a cold and trying month to get through, but contrary to Tom Robbin's beliefs, some rodents give us cause for celebration. We may not see them, but many creatures are active all winter long underneath the snow, braving the long cold winter with us. They are in an area called the subnivean zone. This zone is created when ground heat melts the thin layer of snow above it, leaving sections of airspace usually no more then 4 cm in height.

Once we get just six inches of snowpack the subnivean zone will provide insulation and help prevent heat loss. Regardless of the temperature outside, it will stay 32 degrees in the subnivean zone.

Just to the left of the snowshoe hare print are some tiny mice tracks!

And who are these subnivean residents? Mice, voles and pocket gophers spend most of their time down there, but its not all eating and cozy temperatures. Several animals use the subnivean zone as hunting grounds. Weasels run around down below the snow to catch their dinner, and foxes and larger owls can hear movement beneath them and pounce from above.

Want to try it out for yourself? Build a quinzee, a shelter made by piling and then hollowing out a mound of snow. Just pile up some snow about head height and then wait a few hours for the snow to settle. After, hollow out the middle leaving about a foot on both sides. Crawl inside and spend some time in the warmth of your insulating snow quinzee. Maybe even spend the night!

February is our shortest month but can often feel like one of the longest. So this February take a cue from our some of our active winter rodents and spend some time under the snow instead of just on top of it!

The Fox

2012-02-07T17:33:00.009-07:00

I have been told that a fox stands atop a roof along the morning commute. Fox on a roof: a strange image to conjure, like “swimming cat” or “skateboarding dog” – the juicy stuff of YouTube. The mind is tempted to fit everything into its “place”: foxes in the woods; people in the towns; white snow on the roofs. Break down those walls in our minds and the forest creeps in. The same idea that terrifies us also makes us curious, which may be why we watch these things on YouTube from the comfort of our own homes—perfect boxes and perfectly level desks with perfectly identical computer screens serving as our safe windows into the rugged animal kingdom. But what if, while we ogle at the video of a hungry lynx pouncing on a snowshoe hare, real animals were scurrying about on our rooftops, invisible to us? What if foxes hunted overhead, staining the snow red with squirrel blood?

If the thought of this makes you queasy, you aren’t alone. I would like to think that after a night of revelry and cheer, I could walk home to the comfort of my own bed without fearing bears (guilty confession: at night during bear season I will walk home singing bad songs off-pitch and very loudly…apologies to the neighbors). And yet I hear these stories of foxes on roofs and bears in trees often enough to know that we are surrounded by wild animals.

While walking home last week, I decided to veer right off Main Street onto a quieter side street to enjoy making tracks in a fresh layer of new snow. As I turned, I saw an animal trotting through an intersection, a bushy tail and fast gait giving away its identity: a fox! There is a certain glee in a glimpse. It tantalizes, beckons for more. I submitted.

Following a fox isn’t easy. Its pace was swift, and I had a block to go before I could look to the left up the street on which I had seen it pass. I hurried, only to be left in the middle of the quiet intersection hearing the buzz of a street lamp overhead. My trail had gone cold, it seemed.

The fresh snow was my saving grace. Under the lamp on the sidewalk, the fox’s tracks were unmistakable: two canine paws, as a dog’s would be, but closer together. I picked up the trail once again.

Its tracks were consistent and uniform. My boot tread paralleled the fox’s on the sidewalk, freezing our movements. Surely, I thought, the fox had abandoned the sidewalk and the lights, a move away from the straight lines of civilization and towards the natural contours of a snowdrift. I was becoming a predator for sight, hot on the trail of a glimpse. There would be no blood. The stakes, in a survival sense, were low. And yet I couldn’t shrug the “gotcha” moment where my intentions became clear, where my tracking artifice was recognized, where tracks became animal. It was as intoxicating as hunger itself.

And there, up at the end of the block, was the fox. It was illuminated by the next streetlamp, standing still, looking over its shoulder directly at me. I stopped. The fox was lean and lithe, its fur a beautiful bronze. It was standing in the middle of the intersection surrounded by a round pool of dull light, which gave the scene a vintage quality. The animal was born to trot, to seize opportunities with wary curiosity. Its nose and ears twitched. The fox exuded patience and control, as if I had not so much discovered it as it was allowing me a brief glimpse of something that happens daily. Just as I caught my breath, it broke eye contact and made for the shadows, leaving me to wonder at movement and purpose and light. My time was up.

Perhaps we are always within inches of wilderness. Most of the time we don’t know it; mountain lions are known to silently track people for miles, and I am sure I have slept unknowingly above scorpions. My walk to ACES is usually uneventful, thoughts of sleep, coffee, and ice keeping me busy. Meanwhile, a fox handily bests a pine squirrel on a rooftop somewhere, the evidence of which seen only by the magpies overhead.

Pine Marten

2012-01-30T17:19:00.004-07:00

Winter is here in Aspen and our first big snow fell on January 7th. Of course I was out snowboarding on the mountain. Unfortunately a few wrong moves on my first run and I found myself in a tumble. To make a long story short, I fractured my arm. It was definitely a bummer… but this blog isn’t about me feeling bad about myself. Nature always seems to have a way of turning things around for me. Just a few days later I was waiting for guests to arrive so I could lead a snowshoe tour at Snowmass. The snow looked great and I felt a little bit down as I watched people skiing and snowboarding down the mountain.

No one showed up for my tour and even though my arm was a little sore I decided to hike the Rabbit Run trail anyway. As soon as I got out on the trail and into the woods I felt rejuvenated. The snow was beautiful, I saw tracks everywhere and that feeling of being alone out in a white forest made me forget about my arm and all of the things I couldn’t do. It really made me appreciate where I was.

I came to the end of the trail and sat down at the picnic table to take a few more minutes to enjoy some quiet before I entered back into the real world of skiers and snowboarders everywhere. As I sat there something caught my eye moving around in the trees. I clump of snow fell towards the ground, and there it was, the icing on the cake to my afternoon hike, a Pine Marten. It looked like a male to me, relatively large, the average male Pine Marten is 2-3 feet long. He slowly moved down a Spruce tree and I felt like we caught eyes. I nervously reached into by bag and pulled out my camera just in time to snap a picture of him looking right at me.

Sometimes Nature has a way of showing itself at just the right times. Hundreds of thousands of people come to Aspen and Snowmass every year in the winter to Ski and Snowboard these mountains and it’s no mystery why they are here. The snow and terrain is some of the best in the world. But, this place is special for many more reasons than just powdery snow. Take a walk on a trail after a fresh dusting of snow and you become whisked away into a different world. It’s hard to describe in words the beauty you will find. If you really pay attention, nature will reward you with something spectacular. If you’re lucky it’s a time when you need it the most.

In the Woodpile

2012-01-03T12:28:00.011-07:00

While splitting some aspen on Sunday I came across a perfect circular hole the diameter of my finger in one of the cut ends. A strike with the maul and the wood split along the hole. Inside was what looked like a green leafy cigar divided into six sections. In each chamber a leaf-cutter bee larva (genus Megachile) is overwintering. Inside it is nourished by pollen ball provided by the female who dug the cavity, cut the leaves, and laid the eggs. Leaf-cutting bees are solitary bees unlike hive forming honey bees and yellow jackets.

Under regular conditions this larva would pupate into an adult bee and emerge by late spring to early summer. Research indicates that some species of leaf-cutters are at least twenty times as effective at pollinating as honeybees. These important insects can be thanked for the beautiful wildflowers we see in the summer months.

The Tireless Toad

2011-07-06T17:35:00.004-06:00

A few weeks ago Howie, Kevin and I climbed Ashcroft Mountain. The hike was beautiful, the views were great and my peanut butter and banana sandwich at the summit was delicious. There were tons of awesome finds along the way, what may have been a bears den, some spectacular lodgepole pines, Howie narrowly avoiding an old tree crashing into his head and then later almost stepping on an elk calf and even some big cat tracks. But on the ascent down I made a find that trumps all the others. I know... at this point you are thinking that this day most certainly cannot get much better. I was thinking the exact same thing as we made our final steep ascent down to Express Creek Road. But, with a final leap down to the dusty rock covered road I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A small trickle of water was slowly flowing out of the side of the mountain and there bathing in a cool puddle just in front of my boot was a toad! I absolutely love toads. They may be my favorite animal. They're so rough and tough with there warty skin and distinctive stocky build. I was ecstatic to say the least, but not just because I like the little guys so much. This was no ordinary Eastern American Toad found throughout the eastern United States. This was a boreal toad (Bufo boreas boreas). Boreal toads are Colorado's only alpine species of toad living at elevations between 7,500 and 12,000 feet. Their habitats are restricted to areas where mating is possible in spruce/fFir forests where they can utilize calm sun exposed water. Unlike many other frogs and toads, the boreal toads mating call is a soft chirp rather than the deep loud call of many of his relatives. Unfortunately the boreal toad is an endangered species in Colorado due to a chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). The Colorado Division of Wildlife is currently studying these guys to see if they can come up with a solution to this epidemic. More information about the Boreal Toad Conservation Plan which was completed in 2001 can be found on the CDOW website. If you do happen to sight a boreal toad in the wild contact your local CDOW officer with its location. We were sure to let them know where we found this little guy. Hopefully we will be able to solve this problem so that these wonderful creates will be around for everyone to enjoy as much as I did.

Castle Creek Spring

2011-05-23T22:43:00.008-06:00

After a long winter, evidence left by local animals is beginning to show. With a receding snow pack, new animal signs are uncovered everyday.

One of the most common signs is the elk chew. When the snow is high and forage is buried, elk (Cervus elaphus) rely on the living bark of Aspens for sustenance. I can only assume this grove of Aspens off Castle Creek Road was given the attention of a herd for a good amount of time. These scars will remain far longer than the lifespan of an elk

and this grove will bear the mark of a hungry herd for decades to come.

Another common sign emerging in spring is made by an animal much smaller than an elk. The northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides)is seldom seen, but their eskers can be seen throughout the spring and summer. These sinuous mounds of soil are created in winter when gophers cannot pile their excavated soil in a mound because of the snow pack overhead. To fix this problem gophers tunnel through the snow at ground level and backfill these tunnels with their excavated soil. Despite its small stature, the pocket gopher is an unsung hero of the alpine environment. In an average year a pocket gopher tills 5.2 tons of soil.This tilling provides aeration, water penetration and vertical blending of the soil. Areas constantly tilled by gophers are called gopher gardens and exhibit the highest diversity of all alpine plant ecosystems. This is because the gophers expose new soil for plants to put down roots and their constant appetite prevents one plant species from becoming dominant.

As the snow line continues to retreat keep your eyes open.

Storms (and the power of observations)

2011-04-19T11:16:00.005-06:00

As someone who loves powder skiing, I am somewhat obsessed with weather forecasts. If it is my day to be hanging out at the ACES front desk, you can bet that there are probably multiple weather forecasts up on my computer.

However, while reading weather forecasts is great, experiencing weather is even better. This winter I have been lucky enough to get to spend a lot of time experiencing weather, particularly up at the Wapiti Wildlife Center (and warming hut!) at the top of the Elk Camp chairlift in Snowmass. The Wapiti is at 11,325 feet above sea level, and sits on an exposed open area near the top of Burnt Mountain. The weather down in Base Village at Snowmass is often very different from up at the Wapiti!

At the Wildlife Center we have a small weather station, which includes a Taylor Thermograph.

Thanks to Winding Way Weather for the picture. A thermograph does exactly what it sounds like; it makes a graph of the temperature over a week long period (or multiple weeks if you forget to change the paper!). This lets us look at the temperature over the whole winter. By doing this, we can analyze the weather far more than just saying 'it's really cold out today!'.

Here is a scan of one of my favorite thermograph sheets from this winter. I went over the red ink that the thermograph uses with a black permanent marker, so that it is more visible (click on the image to view it in a larger format!).

The first weekend of April (Friday and Saturday, April 1st and 2nd) were classic spring skiing days. Temperatures got into the low 40s up at 11,000 feet! For reference, there tends to be a difference of 3 degrees Fahrenheit for every 1,000 feet of elevation change, so back in town the temperatures were in the low 50s. However, on Sunday a cold front came in. Looking at the thermograph, the temperature dropped ten degrees in about an hour! While we may remember this storm and this temperature change, it is striking to see it recorded on the graph.

Here's one last way of looking at the storm, from one of my favorite weather forecasters, Joel Gratz and his Colorado Powder Forecast.

Right now we're enjoying a mid April blizzard here in Aspen-- hope you are all enjoying it!

Frost-free Days - Why Give a Hoot?

2011-04-01T11:45:00.000-06:00

Living in Aspen has more than enough perks, from the incredible skiing in the winter to endless backpacking in the summer. The amazing snow and the beautiful sunny days makes you grow accustomed to the weather patterns and the climate of the area.

As a Naturalist and avid outdoor lover I couldn’t help but wonder, how is the warming of our planet affecting the Aspen area? A few naturalists and I dug into some data, provided by NOAA and Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, for the Independence Pass Snotel Site and found a noticeable change in frost-free days in the recent past. There are a lot of climate change numbers, from temperature increases to carbon emissions, it’s hard to keep up with all of the numbers. Focusing on the Aspen region we looked at the number of frost-free days recorded at the Independence Pass Snotel Site. Now, you maybe asking yourself: what exactly are frost-free days? Well, frost-free days are the number of days in a year with minimum temperatures above freezing (0° Celsius).

This data was collected by the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the USDA.

The above record shows a linear increase in the number of frost-free days at the Independence Snotel site from 1986 to 2010. Starting with only 27 frost-free days in 1986 it has been hiking up to 53 days in 1992, 84 in 2000 and onward to 106 frost-free days last winter in 2010. It is hard to look at this data and not think, how does this impact our seasonal snowpack? How will more forst-free days affect our forests? Our rivers? Weltands? Fishing? White water rafting? Agriculture? And, what will this graph look like in twenty years?

Winter Watering Hole

2011-03-08T15:28:00.002-07:00

As ACES naturalists, we often get to see--and share with our guests--signs of winter animals while on the trail. However, due to the nocturnal or crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) habits of many of these animals, we rarely get the chance to see them in action. Last night I was given a rare opportunity to see one of these elusive animals on the prowl in my own backyard.

Several miles up Castle Creek Road, SW of Aspen, my cabin is remote and mostly undisturbed by human activity. Running alongside the cabin, buried under several feet of snow, is a meandering creek that opens into a small pond. Due to the current, the pond seldom freezes completely at the inflow, providing a vital watering hole for many overwintering animals. Throughout the winter, the morning has often revealed a flurry of tracks--snapshots of their nighttime ice capades. Last night, with the aid of an infrared, motion-activated camera, I caught a glimpse of this activity. Much to my surprise however, the cavalcade of winter animals that I had envisioned, turned out to be the mere work of a solitary red fox.

Although omnivores, in the winter, red foxes depend largely on the small rodents living beneath the snow pack in the subnivean zone for food. Locating a mobile food source, often buried under a meter or more of snow, foxes have to cover a lot of ground. Once a prey animal such as a vole or mouse is found, the fox utilizes its acute hearing to pinpoint its depth and location. The fox leaps high into the air and using its tail to direct its flight, dives into the snow, trapping the animal.
To see a video of this in action, click here.

From the images I’ve collected, I suspect that the fox behind my cabin has worked out a sort of nightly routine. It seems to make its first appearance around 9 pm, around the same time that I often begin to settle in and turn off my lights inside. Throughout the night it returns, but only for a few minutes and a quick drink, before heading off in a new direction. By 5 am the visits have ended.

A fresh perspective on Pine Beetles

2011-03-04T13:37:00.011-07:00

Last Thursday at Hallam Lake for the Naturalist Night speaker series, Professor Dan Tinker from the University of Wyoming gave a really illuminating talk about some of the science and research going into the Rocky Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak we are witnessing across the West. Living, working, and learning in Colorado nearly my entire life, I thought I had a decent grasp on most of the science looking at the interactions of Beetles in our forests. Professor Tinker quickly dispelled that little notion of mine.
In one hour, he presented the most scientifically sound overview of the beetle outbreak that I have read or heard about since my undergraduate days. One of the more interesting things about his presentation was that he had a much different message about the beetle epidemic than a lot of the articles we read about in national or local newspapers. His presentation wasn't all doom-and-gloom, in fact, it was quite the opposite. His assertion, which he explained quite well, was that many of the forests which are being hit by the beetles are regenerating with young seedlings and saplings as many of the older trees are being killed. There are lots of younger trees surviving even in the wake of massive die-offs and many of the lodgepole pine forests are going to regenerate within a couple of decades. I have hiked through areas in Grand and Summit county and seen the acres of dead trees but you can't help but noticing the young survivors. These young survivors are going to be the next generation of trees in the forest. The future for our forests isn't truly as bleak as some sources make it out to be.
Professor Tinker used the Yellowstone fires of 1988 as a comparative model for the beetle kill, and it was a powerful example of how resilient many forests are. After the massive fires ran through vast swaths of forest, a couple of years later Prof. Tinker and colleagues witnessed many of the areas recovering quite rapidly with young aspen and lodgepole filling in the vacuum left by the fires. If forests can rebound from a massive fire disturbance then it is likely a pine beetle epidemic isn't going spell the end for our forests. He also presented research looking into the likelihood of a forest fire occurring after the onset of a beetle infestation. Many of the findings suggest the beetle-killed trees don't have a significant impact on increasing the probability of fires starting in a forest. That was new information to me.
Prof. Tinker also brought up the conversation of climate change and beetle infestations. Warmer winters and periods of drought have allowed the more beetles to survive winters than in the past and drought is making it more difficult for trees to fend off swarms of beetles. However, trees have a pretty good defense against beetles (forcing them out with a resinous sap) but the blue-stain fungus that the beetles carry in their jaws is truly responsible for killing many of the trees. The blue-stain fungus moves into the xylem (sapwood) layer of a tree and it basically cuts off the flow of water throughout the tree. The beetles have evolved to carry the blue-stain fungus.
Dan Tinker's presentation reminded me that things are not always as they seem, especially in nature. There are always multiple layers at work in ecology and we must remember to look at nature holistically to grasp the totality of a phenomena like a insect epidemic. Its also important to keep in mind that a system in nature (like a forest) can recover from major disturbances like fire and insect outbreaks.

If your in Aspen, be sure to come by ACES at Hallam Lake on Thursday Nights at 7:30 for Naturalist Nights. Its free and continue through the end of March. Thanks for reading!

Surprises at Hallam Lake

2011-03-03T14:52:00.008-07:00

After almost nine months at ACES (has it really been that long?), I'm beginning to feel like I know Hallam Lake well. However, the best thing about Hallam Lake is that there is always something new to find.
Last week, after a lot of snow over the weekend, Robin and I were walking around the lake, shoveling out the platforms and bridges. Coming around the corner past the big blue spruce, I saw something exciting ahead of me.

In the fresh snow, there was an area with a bit of blood on the snow, some small downy feathers, and some wing marks in the snow! There were no tracks around the site, other than the trail, and no tunnels either-- it was a mystery! Robin and I discussed for a while what could have happened- at first we thought a large bird had gotten a weasel that had put up a fight, but without tracks or a tunnel, it couldn't be!
Here's a more close up shot of the scene:

We decided it must have been a large bird killing a small bird. A male golden eagle has been visiting our female all winter-- perhaps this was his meal?
That same morning, there were also beds on the path where a couple of elk had been spending the night.
I'll admit, I was wrong-- there are still lots of things to learn about Hallam Lake!

The Mink and the Fish

2011-02-14T09:01:00.008-07:00

About 7:45 Sunday morning before heading to the West Buttermilk beach, I spotted the flash of a brown weaselly animal out of the laundry room window. I yelled for Jamie to quickly look out the bathroom to see what it was. She said it was carrying something and that it was headed back toward the hanging log bird feeder that has had a pine marten in it in past years. I caught up with it as it was going along by the kitchen window and around to the front of the house. Mink!

This picture was taken out the front door glass. Jack and Jesse got a great view. The fish was nearly the same size as the mink and was still alive flopping around. Magpies were a mobbing racket. Seemed like the mink was looking for a place to stash the fish. Under the house? He dug around a little but soon grabbed the fish and escaped the magpies under the fence, likely finding a good spot in the ACES woodpile. It was a nice start to a beautiful 40 degree sunny day. I guess the little beaver backwater created in the restored channel (1996) next to Peggy's Island holds fish now and makes for good mink habitat. Thanks Beav! Another piece to this story is the Jenny Adair constructed wetland (2007) which has helped the water quality on the Roaring Fork and increased the acreage of wildlife habitat around Hallam Lake. Mountain Lion, Elk, and Mink all right here during the past month.

Winter Birds: Robins and Grosbeaks

2011-02-11T13:36:00.006-07:00

While some animals hibernate all winter, and some migrate to warmer places, others are active and thriving. We have recently seen pine grosbeaks flying around the mountain ash trees at Hallam Lake! This large and rare member of the finch family is eating the fruit off the ash trees and serviceberries right along the short driveway into ACES. Thankfully Lindsay Fortier captured these birds with her camera before they flew away.

The winter habitat of the pine grosbeak is determined by the availability of food. With a limited amount of fruiting trees the grosbeaks are known to remain on a single tree for many days until all of the berries are gone. Their mild temperament and slow-moving, seemingly lazy, behavior caused the grosbeak to get the nickname, 'mope.'

Many people presume that our local Colorado robins migrate to a warmer climate for the cold winter. And they would be correct... for the most part. Animals that are active in our winter world are in the constant business of trying to find energy; we all need food to generate heat to keep ourselves alive. While many robins do migrate away from Aspen, some also take the energy budget challenge and stay. The amount of non-migratory robins depends on the amount of available food in a particular year. This year seems to have a plentiful amount of berries. Thus, we are seeing many robins that have decided to stay the cold winter.

Passing Through

2011-02-08T22:21:00.005-07:00

Sometimes it is really easy to forget that we work at a nature preserve. Six elk grazing in the deep snow on the far end of Hallam Lake can remind you that there are plenty of animals passing through. My coworker Lindsay Gurley spotted these Elk from about 250 yards away with her keen vision. After work I went home to grab my camera and headed right back to Hallam Lake in the fading light. I headed along the Roaring Fork River and tried my best to silently walk through three feet of snow. After stepping into a foot of swamp mud I made it to an observation deck that hasn't been shoveled since November. From the platform I could see the elk through a thicket of willows about 100 yards to my left. The elk were grazing and suddenly started to move, I can only assume that the elk caught my scent. The amount of noise I was making most likely gave them a hint as well. They rounded the corner about 60 yards in front of me and came into the viewfinder of my camera. As the elk passed they gave a quick glance and continued on to the back of the preserve. This is where we parted ways; I didn't want to be a thorn in their side anymore. It is a nature preserve after all.

Rounding the corner

The name wapiti is from the Shawnee and Cree language and, means "white rump"

Jumping the creek, saying goodbye

Puzzling Prickly Prints

2011-02-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

Atop Aspen Mountain I was waiting for guests to join me on a tour. One o’clock passed and no one arrived except a fellow Naturalist, Robin. Instead of taking Robin on a tour that she also leads, we decided to just walk the trail and enjoy the day. As we walked away from the hustle and bustle of the ski hill we started through the forest. It had just snowed the day before, so the snow was gleaming and untouched. As we walked up a nice hill tracks crossed our paths, I hadn’t seen anything like them before. And with a few seconds of thoughts, I yelled out in excitement, “porcupine tracks, porcupine tracks”! These are probably the coolest tracks I have seen yet. I like to think of a porcupine track like a broom, they waddle along, leaning from one side to the other, dragging their feet and quills as they sweep across the snow. We were both so excited we decided we had to find the prickly fellow.

At first we thought he couldn’t have gone far, maybe just in the tree a few yards away, but it turns out our prickly friend must have been on a mission of his own. We followed his tracks across the snowmobile tracks of Richmond Ridge Road and up a mighty steep, but small, hill. He traveled across our snowshoe trail, once again, and down the hill towards Little Annies Road. We tracked him for quite a ways but then decided he was heading all the way down the hill, a trek we were not equipped for. So after cutting through the fresh snow, and chasing down our unseen porcupine we had to abandon our mission and accept that he was somewhere in the trees, eating away at the bark of a spruce tree. But I have hope that I will run into, hopefully not literally, one soon. One has been spotted on Elk Camp on Snowmass Mountain, so hopefully I will get to see an active prickly porcupine before the winter is over!

You never know

2011-01-25T12:01:00.010-07:00

Saturday, January 22nd seemed like a typical Snowmass day, snow was falling and I was prepared for two nice treks through the woods. About 3/4 of the way through my first tour, my group kept hearing the call of Ruby Crowned Kinglets. We stopped to try to locate the birds in the dense spruce trees surrounding us, but they eluded our attempts at spotting them. Just when we were about to give up hope and move on, a birder extraordinaire sighted an owl perfectly camouflaged against the aged bark of an Englemann Spruce.

This Boreal Owl, also known as Tengmalm's Owl in Eurasia (Aegolius funereus), was a small owl. Only standing about nine-ten inches tall. It was perched about fifteen feet off the ground on a low branch, twenty feet off the trail. The owl was very aware of us, but did not seem to care. He/She realized that we were not a threat and would doze off every time we stood still and let silence surround us. When we took a step past the owl, its eyes would open briefly to reassess the situation and go back to sleep. After a few minutes of basking in the wonder of a wildlife sighting, we decided it would be rude to keep the owl awake and continued on our way.

This sighting reminded me that I have the best offices in the world. Although at times Snowmass seems like a ski area, it is truly a wild place. If anything could reaffirm this, it would be sighting an owl between Turkey Trot and Elk Camp Meadows.

Photographs courtesy of Bob Wyers.

A Mountain Lion Reality

2011-01-12T11:37:00.009-07:00

There is nothing like waking up early and driving 12 miles out of Aspen on a windy road. Actually, there is nothing like waking up early on a snowy Sunday in January and driving up this road before any other vehicle in four inches of new snow. Driving no more than 15mph I was able to make out some tracks on the snow covered road in front of me. Immediately reminded of the book I am currently reading, The Tiger by John Valliant, I stopped my car to investigate.

Describing a journey in Russia's Far East, looking for Amur Tigers, Valliant writes,

There is an unintentional courtesy in the winter forest that occurs around pathways of any kind. It takes a lot of energy to break trail through the snow, especially when it's crusty or deep, so whoever goes first, whether animal, human or machine, is preforming a valuable service for those following behind. Because energy - i.e. food - is at a premium in the winter, labor-saving gifts of this kind are rarely refused. As long as the footpath, logging road, frozen river - or highway - is going in the right direction, other forest creatures will use it too, regardless of who made it. In this way, paths have a funneling, riverlike effect on the tributary creatures around them, they can make for some strange encounters.

Imagining myself Trush, the hero and tiger tracker of Valliant's book, I was unrelistically praying the tracks were those of the immense Amur Tiger. (This book has me obsessed.) However, I was delighted to find the tracks of a different charismatic megafauna, the mountain lion - a local creature I have never seen in the wild. The tracks were alternating in a not quite perfect stepping motion, each print being about 2.5 inches wide. Perfect steppers would use the same place to step with the front foot and then the hind foot, another way to save energy, and making it appear that only two feet were walking in the area. I've read that in deeper snow a mountain lion would be a perfect stepper, but these few fresh inches did not provide enough of a challenge to warrant this careful pattern. There were no other tracks nearby. It seemed this lion, as Valliant describes, was just taking advantage of this previously plowed road as a way to travel upvalley.

Realizing that I was standing in the middle of the road, and a truck could come around the corner any second, I jumped back into my car and continued the slow valley climb. The tracks continued for another three miles! I parked at Toklat and walked next to the tracks until they turned west into the woods. I suppose it wasn't my day to meet a lion face to face.

Telling one of the 'cowboys' who works at the Ski Touring Center about my discovery he casually pulled out a gun and told me that 'Yea they come around this way from time to time. Knew it was smart of me to grab this when i woke.' Responding to the terror on my face he assured me that no, he's not hunting the lions, just trying to make sure they don't bother the work horses up there. He said he would never kill a lion, just scare him off...

He laughed at me, the silly animal loving naturalist, and went on his way.

Best Job Ever?

2010-12-27T16:07:00.003-07:00

Many people assume that I (well, we) have the best job ever. And that is definitely true, almost all of the time.
Today, however, it was time to clean the eagle cage. For those of you who haven't been to Hallam Lake, our resident eagle spends most of her days outside, on a grassy mound. At night she moves to a large enclosure, with a smaller wooden box inside of it that is open on one side. She spends much of her time inside of this protected space, and so it gets quite filthy. She definitely does not follow the rule of not pooping where you eat!
Cleaning the eagle cage is a pretty involved process. First, I have to get dressed for it. Luckily, we keep a spare pair of clothes just for this purpose.... Not sure how old they are, but they do the trick!
The next step is protective goggles and rubber gloves. I also like to cinch down the hood on my jacket so that no splatter gets on my hair!
The best part of cleaning the eagle cage is climbing up into the wooden box. I feel vaguely like an eagle up there, except that I'm definitely a lot bigger than she is.
Here I am in the eagle cage...

I realize this starts my blogging career off on a little bit of a gross note, but such is the life of a naturalist-- we never quite know what's in store for the day! While it really is one of the best jobs ever, today I was more or less a janitor. Can't wait to find out what tomorrow has in store!

My first blog ever

2010-12-27T13:40:00.006-07:00

So, I must make an admission. This is my first blog...ever. I have given birth to a blog. Hopefully I can raise this blog into a competent, mature, productive member of the online blog community. To kick things off I want to share something special with you, something so incredible you will be required to jump and scream with glee. Wanna know what its about, ey? How about this: Bugs!

Somewhat anti-climatic. I know. Well, I'll let you make the call after you read the story.

It was Dec 23 and I was guiding a snowshoe tour at Snowmass. The previous day had been unseasonably warm, we're talking in the 30's above 10,000ft. But this day was much different, we were hiking in a veritable blizzard, a drastic change from the day before. We began hiking into the trees and we all noticed some peculiar "dust" on top of the snow...it almost looked like residue from explosive charges that are left behind after ski patrollers do avalanche control work. But in the trees? Away from any ski run? This didn't make any sense, so we needed to take a closer look. Upon closer inspection, we were suddenly surprised to see the little dust particles jumping around on top of the snow. Hark! Springtails, a.ka. snow fleas. Thousands of them springing all around on the snow. Of the countless tours I have given over the years and from my own excursions in to the woods during the winter I had never noticed these little arthropods! These little guys are pretty common in the spring and summer when the ground is really saturated with water but it was my first sighting and it was quite a surprise for me and my guests, considering that we were in a blizzard. We saw them concentrated in a 20 square foot area under a cluster of trees but there were thousands of them, and they were very easy to spot against the white background of snow. Quite a sight, you never know what you'll see in an area even if you've been there hundreds of times.

Follow the link to read more about these interesting little insects. Thanks for reading! More observations and stories to come.

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05602.html

Well Done!

2010-12-17T14:36:00.001-07:00

Thanks for setting this up Ellen!