Where are all the gulls?

Way back on June 5th one of our jobs was tearing down an old wooden fence.  That fence has been laying in the same place ever since we tore it down. 

This past week we finally got permission to gather up all that wood and take it to the landfill.

Finally, we can cross this project off our list.

So, where are all the gulls?  Seems like any time we go to a landfill in Texas, there are hundreds of gulls.  Even in Austin, which isn’t anywhere near the coast, we would see lots of gulls.  In fact, landfills are great birding spots.  We didn’t see a single gull at the San Luis landfill. 

 Teri

Birds in Flight 2

Back in August we had a blog showing Common Nighthawks in flight.  I intended that to be the beginning of a "Birds in Flight" series, but didn't really follow up.  So here goes...

The San Luis Valley is a wide open valley, with a large population of rodents.  This means that it is a great place for raptors to live and hunt.

The most common hawk is the Swainson's Hawk.  We see lots of these guys perched on power poles and soaring through the skies. While there are light, medium, and dark morphs (plumage versions) of this hawk, we have only seen the common light morphs here.

When it comes to bird-in-flight photography hawks are great. They are large, relatively slow flying, and usually easy to get close to. 

Here is a picture of a perched Swainson's Hawk, followed by a shot just after taking off. Nice talons!!

Here is a soaring Swainson's Hawk, with its distinctive long, pointed wings. Note the dark outline of the wings and the brown "bib".

With so many small rodents in the Valley, we occasionally see a hawk drop to the ground to capture a meal.  One day were watching a pair of hawks, and one dropped to the ground and caught a rodent.  We then witnessed a spirited chase, with the successful hunter being pursued by the second member of the pair.  They flew out of sight so we didn't see how this played out. Perhaps they shared the meal???

Mark

Change of Season

We have really noticed a change in weather this month.  While we are still enjoying warm, sunny afternoons, the mornings have cooled off.  Our typical lows have been in the upper 30's to mid 40's, though we did have a low of 33 degrees last week!

Along with the cool nights has come changes in the trees.  We are seeing colorful leaves with some leaves already dropping.  

In the mountains behind our trailer, we can see the aspens with their golden leaves. These next two pictures were taken just a few days ago.  First a long shot, then a close-up of the golden aspens. 

This morning we awoke to another sign of the changing seasons.  The taller peaks had received a dusting of snow overnight! And in the morning light, the colors seemed more vivid.

We look forward to more cool weather, and perhaps some snow down here in the valley before long.

Mark

Pagosa Springs Disc Golf

Mark has been having a lot of fun at the local disc golf course in Alamosa.  He found that Pagosa Springs has a course and we decided to take a quick overnight trip to Pagosa and check it out.

We started out early on a beautiful, cool morning with quite a hike to the start of the course.

This course is a little more challenging than our local course, with lots of trees and a hilly terrain.

We had a great time and even tried a new restaurant!

Another Finished Project

Our time here in the San Luis Valley is quickly coming to an end.  One of the strange things with the Refuge (and maybe all National Wildlife Refuges, I don’t know) is that for the month of September, they cannot make any purchases.  This has really put a crimp in our maintenance duties.  The last week of August we looked at our remaining list of jobs and tried to figure out what supplies we would need to purchase in order to complete as many items on our to-do list as we could during September.

Our most recently finished project was to build shelves in three closets at the Monte Vista Headquarters.  Mark measured and cut all our newly purchased wood and I sanded all the rough edges.

I then spent several days painting.

The local Friends group uses one of the rooms to store hats, t-shirts and various other supplies.  They had pretty much put all their things in the middle of the floor on top of some exercise equipment that was being stored in the room.  Mark built shelves for the Friends room and we purchased a shelving unit for one wall. 

I spent a day sorting through all their things and organizing the new shelves.

Here is the transformation:

Zapata Falls

Snowmelt from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains flows across the San Luis Valley to one of the longest rivers in the country: The Rio Grande.  Along its journey is Zapata Falls, a secluded 30-foot waterfall sheltered in a rocky crevasse.

Like most waterfalls, you have to work a bit to reach the prize.  We maneuvered over slippery rocks to get to the falls.

The falls themselves are located inside a large notch in the cliff face.

On the day we visited the falls, there was an Eagle Scout project going on.  Along the most treacherous area of the hike to the falls, the scouts were placing anchors for a cable that could be used for a handrail.

After our hike to the falls we back-tracked a little bit to find the trail going to Zapata Lake.  The lake is another four miles up the mountain.  We walked for a couple of miles and found a beautiful, cool spot to rest before we headed back down the mountain.  We’ll save the hike to the lake for another day.

Teri

They're Back !!

The San Luis Valley is the major spring and fall migration stopover for the Rocky Mountain population of Greater Sandhill Cranes.  The major festivals here at Monte Vista NWR are the Spring Crane Festival and the Fall Children's Crane Festival.

We arrived here in late April, after the Sandhills had departed for points north.  But this afternoon I was outside and saw six large birds gliding in with their long legs hanging down.  Our first fall Sandhill Cranes!!  The area behind our trailer is grown up with barley, which the refuge plants as feed for the migrating cranes.

Feeding on the Barley

 When we first looked, we thought that the brown birds were this year's young.

 But a look at Sibley's Field Guide revealed that many summer adult birds have "rust-stained plumage", and the red caps on these mean that they are indeed adults. I guess it is always a good idea to check your references!!

We look forward to many more cranes arriving through the month of September.  Stay tuned for better, closer pictures...

Mark