We drove to the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge this morning. It took us about 1 ½ hours to get there. It is the highest National Wildlife Refuge outside of Alaska, and is a pretty deserted place. The refuge is an interesting combination of sage brush uplands and riparian habitat. We had a nice lunch at the Moosecreek Café in Walden, which is pretty close to the Wyoming boarder. After lunch, we drove an auto loop that is on a different section of the refuge. There is a prairie dog town in the section where we saw several people in blinds with scopes. It looked like the prairie dogs had just had their babies. We guessed that they were being counted.
When we came back into the park we saw signs that Trail Ridge Road was closed because of snow and ice. We had just driven the road on Wednesday!
After dinner we went to the visitor center for a program on Small Owls of the Mountains. It was a very good PowerPoint presentation with a lot of photos. On the way home, a herd of elk ran across the road in front of us. We stopped to see what had spooked them and saw a giant black bear! We watched him for quite a while before he went back into the forest.
Gadwall and American Avocet
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Pronghorn
Pronghorn
White-tailed Prairie Dog
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