Flycatchers fly and alpine hike

Yesterday, the adventurer from the brood of Cordilleran Flycatchers nesting under our deck took flight in the morning. Around midday, the second flitted off into the trees without me seeing his momentous flight.

By 7:30PM last night, I thought that a pair of chicks would spend one more night in the nest when I took this photo of the lingering duo.Then, as I watched the Tour de France on the deck at dusk, I heard fluttering under the deck and mom chirping vociferously. I ran to the edge of the deck, and I saw both babies on the ground just below a pine tree. While I grabbed my camera, one flew into the tree. I captured a photo of the one still resting on the pine needles.
Then, he fluttered, hesitated on the ground, and miraculously lifted off! He landed on a pine branch just above him. Due to the failing light, it's difficult to see him in the photo.
This fluffy fledgling immediately embarked on a series of short flights from one tree to another, and landed next to his sibling. A parent promptly perched next to the babies and called to her spouse. An answer echoed from the nearby forest.

The family is still nearby today. I can hear the parents calling back and forth in the forest just outside our clearing. I love hearing them and knowing that their nestlings have flourished so far.

Today, K and I headed up to the thin air for a hike that I'll write more about tomorrow. We hiked among clear mountain lakes and wildflowers.
K swam and then soaked up the sun.

K and I explore

True summer speeds by at our elevation so I'm trying to immerse myself in its warmth and bounty. K and I hope to hike up near the Divide tomorrow if the thunderstorms abate. But, for today, I pedaled and she ran through our forest. As we rolled past an imposing rocky prominence, I realized that we'd never scrambled to the top. So, I dropped my bike, and we started picking our way to the top. I carefully chose my route to avoid the sheer walls that I couldn't have climbed. K followed me closely, and we finally emerged to see blue sky and mountains.The rocks dropped of precipitously to the west so I kept K close. She panted like a locomotive in the strong sun. I think that her squinting eyes need doggles (doggie sunglasses)!I soon started to cautiously wend my way down through the boulders and cliffs but couldn't remember the easy route that I'd found while climbing up. I slid under a young pine tree and K stayed stock-still at the top.
Next, I barely squeezed between two boulders. K stood at the top with a look telling me that she had no intention of following my route.I pondered what to do. K can get scared to the point of complete shut-down when asked to negotiate tough obstacles. However, that's during agility training. For example, it took two years for K to decide to walk across a teeter-totter (even now, she's eternally so proud of herself that she'd play teeter-totter all day if I'd let her). For about a year of that time, she wouldn't even go within 15 yards of the teeter-totter.

However, as I looked up at her this morning, I realized that she'd never been scared by natural terrain. She's always easily negotiated boulder fields and even single-log bridges high over creeks. In fact, in the woods, she always moves with a natural confidence peppered with a dose of suitable caution. So, I kept descending, thinking that she'd find the 'easy' route that I'd used to go up. She still didn't move.
Uh oh. Now, I started considering climbing back up to lead her down. First, I tried one more trick, disappearing behind a boulder despite my niggling fear that she'd leap off the cliff to get to me. R would leap but all my past experience said that K wouldn't. Sure enough, she trotted down to my side in about 5 seconds by the least technical and very gradual route we'd used on the way up. Whew. What a smart girl. I'm not sure why she posed so long on top of the cliff, unless she was angling for some statuesque photos.

As we rolled toward home, K skidded to a stop to sniff a scratched out depression that annihilated my tire tracks that I'd left only 30 minutes earlier. Bobcats, lions, and coyotes all scratch dirt into small piles, leaving shallow holes, to mark their territories. These carnivores prefer to make these scratchings in prominent locations like the middle of a trail. I found a small piece of scat, probably from a bobcat, in the dirt pile. As I checked it out, K's nose dropped to the ground, and she purposefully trotted off into the forest. Her calm purposeful demeanor suggested that she was running late for an appointment with the bobcat. I called her back and had to laugh. We humans and dogs are so different in some ways. But, I love that K makes me notice animal signs that I'd otherwise whoosh past without a second glance.

In the interest of full honesty, K insisted that I confess that I cussed at her later in the ride. I was riding down a very technical trail that I can barely negotiate even when I tunnel every iota of my attention into seeking the easiest line of travel. K chose that moment to streak off like a predator after prey, pulling my eyes away from the trail and to her. I yelled for her to come and simultaneously lost control of my bike. Sometimes, the combination of keeping an eye on my dog and riding on trails exceeds my mental bandwidth. That's why K wears a bell but it's not foolproof. Fortunately, I managed to avoid a full fall but it scared me since my spine is still recovering from my last crash. As I felt the vibrations reverberate up my spine after landing hard on my feet, I cussed K, not loudly, but just barely audibly. Moments like that one test my zen abilities but, seconds later, I managed to find a happy tone and give her treats because she returned to me pronto when I called her.

After leaving K at home, I rode some more on my own as the clouds gathered, organized, and swelled over the mountains. I spotted a colony of new flowers invading an aspen grove where columbines ruled just last week. These plants are the antithesis of columbines. They're almost 2 feet tall, stout, and look indomitable. Despite their distinctive features, I haven't managed to identify them, except that they're probably in the Figwort family. The leaves are compound, deeply toothed, and mostly basal. Does anyone else have any ideas?
Despite the tough look of the overall plant, each blossom was delicate and eye-catching.
Right next to these behemoths, a fly drank nectar from a Dwarf Goldenrod. The fly loomed like a giant compared to the individual flowers of the goldenrod's raceme. It looks like pollen sticks to the fly's feet as he perches on a flower, and then the next flower scrapes off his foot dust. He looks almost too big to actually feed from these flowers.I'll never tire of the sight that greeted me as I approached home. I stopped to gaze at the green aspen leaves, craggy mountains, and billowy clouds.
And, to my surprise, when I arrived home, it looked like the biggest flycatcher baby, who has undeniably dwarfed the others from the beginning, had fledged while the other three remained nest-bound. The parents are still fussing around the nest, and I haven't been able to see the potential fledgling in the trees. However, in past years, all the fledglings learned to fly almost simultaneously. If I'm correct that one forerunner has escaped the nest, it must be tough for the parents to balance keeping the newly-free youngster safe and well-fed while still protecting and feeding the ones in the nest. It looks like being a good parent is tough work!

And then there were three...

Brimming with summer energy

Our Cordilleran Flycatcher nestlings braved the night on their own last night. Mother flycatcher perched in a nearby tree. Every year, the mother flycatcher has left the chicks alone in the nest for the last night or two before they fledge. The nestlings have started morphing into miniature replicas of their parents, except for their pink beaks, unlike their alien appearance a few days ago.Today, both parents flitted about under the deck, frequently chirping and fluttering up to the nest to feed the chicks. I'm surprised that the young haven't yet flown the coop. They barely fit in the nest.This morning, finally, I felt almost normal for the first time since my crash last week. Up until today, I've had trouble dragging my ailing body out of bed each morning, due to a headache, back spasms, aching legs, and a white-hot streaking pain in my shin. Each day, I've felt better after riding but getting started has been a battle. But, today, nothing hurt very much when I opened my eyes. Never take that gift for granted.

K and I enthusiastically rolled into a sunny and gorgeous day.
We stopped in a meadow, where I noticed a surprising montage of Blanket Flowers, a bumblebee, and a grasshopper.In the foreground, the fuzzy yellow and black striped bumblebee monopolized the fresher of the two flowers.While the meek grasshopper sipped from the older, almost dessicated, blossom.As we pedaled further from home, K seemed to sense my brimming energy and zoomed, zig-zagging from one side of the trail to the other. She seems fully recovered from leptospirosis, although she still has another 10 days of antibiotics ahead of her. Her brother, R, has now come down with the same symptoms as she had so he's starting the regime. Those were some costly slurps from a mud puddle that both dogs took.

As K and I energetically rolled along, she abruptly halted and sniffed a log with trepidation. Someone, I'm guessing a bear, overturned a log, exposing a swarming and swirling colony of angry ants. The log roiled with frantic activity, and the angry hexapods climbed up to my ankles while I tried to take a photo between swats at climbing ants. By this point, the sage K had retreated to 20 yards away from the unhappy colony.
I'm always happy to see evidence of our bears foraging like the wild ursines that I want them to be, rather than exploiting naive humans who leave food accessible. So, despite getting ants on my ankles, I was happy!

After K ate her breakfast, I headed out for more pedaling. I followed my favorite climbing route, one where the trail parallels a creek and climbs arrow-like through wildflower adorned meadows to a lookout point. I climbed hard, enjoying the feeling that my body didn't hurt. And, what a view from the deserted lookout!Clouds had begun to organize into storm cells over the mountains as is their habit in the summertime but none had swelled into towering columns or turned black. That meant that I could enjoy a leisurely finish to my ride.

To get home, I rode along a slightly uphill route carved into the side of an almost vertical wooded slope. This trail, Wildcat Alley, is where I've seen many animals signs over the years, include scat and tracks of lions, bears, and pine martens. Although I remained alert, I didn't see any large animals today - but it's always exciting to imagine that they saw me ride by.

I passed a spring, still flowing freely below a cliff. Numerous flowers specialized for moist sunny spots flourished. A Monkshood (Aconitum columbianum) grew aside the spring, its purple blossom hanging at my shoulder height. This view is from below the blossom, showing the view of a visiting insect, without the special effects of insect vision.At a slight distance from the cold clear water, yellow flowers towered over my head.
I believe that they're Tall Coneflowers (Rudbeckia ampla).
And, best of all, wild raspberries shined like bright red beacons. I settled in to forage for these sweet and tiny treats. I kept watching for lions and bears, who might amble along and stumble over me in the depths of the tall growth. But, truth be told, if a lion decided to hunt me at that point, I'd have been in big trouble. Sometimes, I just have to relax, trust the animals to leave me alone, and enjoy summer's bounty.

Vicissitudes of puppyhood and fog enshrouded flowers

Evening sun rays, almost parallel to the meadow, lit the flowers and our dogs while we practiced recalls yesterday evening. Our little black bear, R, sprinted toward me, his pink tongue and white teeth flashing in the sunlight.
Our brown bear, K, looked like rich chocolate in setting sun.
For our next recalls, the dogs galloped with carefree happy strides through a forest of Mariposa Lilies. K used her ears to turbo-charge her recall!
Of course, R's stride buzzed with intensity, just like every aspect of him.
Yesterday, I noticed how mature R has become about not attempting to eat from K's bowl when their meals are at different times. This respectful behavior emerged in the past month. What a good dog he's being, lying on his bed staring longingly at K's breakfast, in the photo below.Then, today, my husband prepared both R's and K's breakfasts but K was still out bike riding with me. When my husband briefly left the room, R put his paws on a high table, leaving scratch marks, and ate K's entire breakfast. The moral of the story is that R is still wildly oscillating between mature behavior and naughty puppy behavior!

This morning dawned gray, drizzling and cold - dismal for July. Once I overcame my reticence to ride in damp air colder than 50 degrees, wearing leg warmers, arm warmers, and long-fingered gloves, I enjoyed pedaling through the forest. The horizon that usually shines with mountains was shrouded by a gray wall of clouds except for a five minute period when the mountains barely glowed through the thick fog.After yesterday's ride, today's seemed mellow with no exciting animals crossing our paths. K and I moved in synchrony with an easygoing bond, enjoying the forest sounds. We passed through raucous crow cawing, chickadee alarm calls, grouse wings fluttering loudly, and complete silence. As we stood together in the depths of a pine forest, we heard... nothing. I stayed a little while, enjoying the silence, feeling at peace with the world.

We spotted a patch of Black-eyed Susans decorating the floor of an aspen grove. Its eye looks like a birthday cake on careful inspection. Its pistils, the female tubes in the reproductive system where the pollen needs to be carried by pollinators, look like burning candles on the edge of a cake.Miniscule spiders crawled on the eyes of almost all of these flowers. Perhaps they're pollinators for Black-eyed Susans? In the photo below, a reddish spider appears near the bottom and in the center of the black eye.A bit later, I spotted a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird feeding in a meadow of wildflowers. She had a choice of a huge variety of flowers but solely drank nectar from Indian Paintbrush.Finally, just now in the late afternoon, the sun has burned through the clouds, and the temperature has soared to 60 degrees. We may have a sunny evening hike!

Bears in our forests

Last night, mama flycatcher slept atop her squirming pile of nestlings yet again. She spread her wings and covered them like a blanket. The babies take up every inch of the cup nest so mom looked balanced precariously on top.This morning, I had a plan to head up to the Divide for a hike but storm clouds menaced the mountains early. Feeling a bit depressed about it, I scrapped my plan and went for a mountain bike ride with K. Now, I'm glad that my plans changed because I had a magical encounter with a bear cub at the end of my ride.

At the beginning of the ride, K and I climbed up through a mixed aspen, shrub, and pine forest. For the second time in the past week, a massive bear scat sat, full of territorial meaning, blocking the sinuous path.

Always the scientist, I measured it (each segment >2" in diameter) and investigated what it contained (mushroom pieces, berry pits, seeds, - and notably, no human-related foods) with K watching over me. In the photo, the scat is in the extreme foreground.As I examined it, K picked up a scent which soon monopolized her attention. She craned her neck, wiggled her nose, and gazed into the distance.
Finally, K fully immersed herself in the scent. I worried that wildlife roamed nearby so we moved along.That photo highlights something that I'm ashamed of, a remote shock collar, that I've used to stop K in her tracks when she's chased coyotes, putting her own life in danger. I haven't used it in more than a year but I still fear that she might, yet again, fall for the luring and then attacking tactic of our local coyote pack. I've blogged in the past about my decision to use the collar. In retrospect, I'm glad that I did use it because her life was in danger, and I'd exhausted my arsenal of positive training methods to deal with the problem. In our last few coyote encounters, K has returned to me by her own decision and received a mountain of treats!

When we emerged from an aspen forest to an unobstructed view of the mountains, the clouds hanging so ominously over the mountains made my decision not to visit the alpine meadows seem smart.Two deer, young males with budding velvet antlers, browsed to the west of the peak where we lingered. K kept a close eye on them but left them in peace. She sat in front of me to remind me of the treats that she'd earned with her good behavior.
We clattered down the hill and into the forest, traversing my favorite trail. This trail lulls me with deeply forested pine glades and soft pine-needle laden paths, punctuated by sudden bright views of the mountains. In the 20 minutes since we'd left the peak, the clouds had swelled upward although some blue sky still fought them off.
As we rounded a curve in one of the dark forest sections, K suddenly switched modes, to the high-alert bear mode that I've learned to recognize. For the rest of our ride together, I yelled 'Hey bear' as we approached blind curves. I love seeing bears when I'm by myself but I worry about whether K might get hurt in a close-up encounter.

Just before returning to a main trail, we gazed one more time at the Divide while stopping for a hug. Yesterday, I started organizing all of our photos of S, a journey that left me feeling sad and very protective of our dogs. The view of the Divide matched my inner angst.
After I dropped K at home, I packed a rain jacket, fully expecting a drenching, and headed out for some more riding. Although the surrounding peaks looked scary, I was in a moving pocket of sunlight for the first half of the ride. I spotted a Rocky Mountain Dotted-Blue Butterfly (Euphilotes ancilla), on a dry rocky ridge, drinking the nectar of a Sulphur flower, which my butterfly book says is its favorite food.The wildflowers have transformed this exposed ridge, making it a magical place that I can't resist visiting. I don't remember ever seeing such a vast array of wildflowers that paints the entire ridge in shades of yellow, purple, and red.

Alas, as I climbed the last little peak on the ridge, the mountain view sent me into turbo mode to try to beat the lightning home. The peaks themselves now had no spots of sunshine on them and I heard rumbles from the west.
I put my head down and rode like a lion was swatting at my back wheel. It felt good to rev up the engines. A series of storms moved over me in rapid succession. A frenzy of raindrops would drench me but sunshine would reassert its power within 5 minutes. I never put on my rain jacket despite several downpours. Each time, the sun warmed me within minutes of being rain splattered.

As I got tantalizingly close to home, the lightning flashes seemed brighter and closer, scaring me. I found yet another turbo gear in my pedaling action. I rode as fast as I safely could, with my head down, watching for obstacles on the trail. Then, I heard a branch crack. It had my full attention but I hadn't stopped riding yet. Another loud crack. I halted, and looked up to see a tiny bear cub, within 15 yards of me, galavanting across the forest floor toward his mother and sibling who waited about 50 yards away. He was a jet black ball of fur, leaping, tumbling, and skittering toward the safety of his mom. He looked a bit smaller than our 55 lb Black Lab R. I'd guess he was 30-40 lbs. He was definitely a 'cub of the year', born during last winter's hibernation.

I lost myself in the wonder of watching the cub, with almost no fear, because I knew that I wasn't between him and his mom. As he lept one log, I actually saw the pinkish soles of his paws. Despite his irresistably cute demeanor, he moved fast. By the time I readied my camera, he was too far away for a good photo but I did capture his distant silhouette. He's the black form slightly to the left and below the center of the photo.What a magical way to end the ride. I was drenched in rain with mud splatters decorating my legs but the warm sun lit our small slice of the forest. And, a family of wild animals graced me with a glimpse of their life.

A healing ride

Yesterday evening, sun rays emanated from the horizon, lighting up flowers and a ladybug in our meadow.R, our jet black running machine, trotted through the mosaic. R's elbow, flawed with dysplasia (osteochondritis dissecans) at birth, was surgically repaired last fall. Despite his high octane lifestyle, his elbow seems durable and strong. We give him a ton of fish oil and monthly Adequan (glucosamine and chondroitin) injections to help stave off joint degeneration. We love seeing him run with no hitch in his stride.
As we returned from our short hike, we spotted one of our flycatcher chicks pointing his beak toward the sky. The chicks still reside in the nest. Last night, mom slept on top of them but it looked tough to snooze on such a lumpy and squirmy bunch! Usually, on the night before the downy chicks fledge, mom lets them sleep alone and perches nearby to watch over them.K and I rolled out into blue skies and sun-warmed air. She seems better each day, as the antibiotics kill the invading leptospirosis. Her energy overflowed, and translated into frenetic explorations of every nook and cranny of the forest. We're relieved to see her do so well.We rolled through a meadow with yellow flowers, members of the aster family, aligned toward the fading sun. Clouds gathered on the Divide already.
Later, after I left K at home, I rolled mellowly through fields of flowers with mountain views. I didn't linger as a stiff wind whooshed through the pine forest on the meadow's edge. The wind blasted off the Divide, signaling thunder storms approaching.This summer, I've noticed how pollinators strongly prefer certain wildflowers. Swallowtail butterflies love Colorado Loco flowers. And, bees swarm to Sulphur flowers. This bee buzzed angrily as I snapped close-up photos.Today, my bike ride spelled the end of my leg muscle cramps, caused by spinal pressure in my neck. Calf muscle aches awakened me this morning but, within 20 minutes of my first pedal stroke, they'd faded to almost nothing. I'm thankful every time I recover from a scare. I fear that one of these exacerbations will lead to surgery, recommended by my docs, to fuse five of my neck vertebrae. For now, keeping moving by pedaling every day seems like a much better option!