Wind, wind, wind - and a tiny bit of dog agility

Yesterday afternoon, the dogs played in the meadow, sans elk or coyotes, and the skies looked threatening. The sunlight from the west gave the meadow a unique hue.The clouds on the western horizon told me that another shot of winter weather was imminent.
At the end of our walk, there was enough daylight for K and me to play agility. Only about 2" of snow remained in the agility area (that's unprecedented for March) so I had her run through the weave poles a few times. Below, I've embedded a video from last fall when she'd practiced consistently for about a month (for most of the summer, she was afraid of the agility equipment - a situation that rapidly changed when she started taking confidence-inducing thyroid supplements). You can see that she 'single-foots' some poles but not others. Can the experts tell me if dogs naturally start single-footing all the poles with practice? Does a dog as large as a lab normally 'single-foot' weave poles? She turned back toward me at the end because the camera made me hesitate to throw a reward toy (for fear of hitting the camera) - normally she sprints through to chase the toy.



This morning, as predicted by the ominous sunset, a coating of snow frosted the forest floor and trees. The temperature hovered at 10 degrees and the wind gusted to 60 mph. So, this is the wonderful winter weather we've been missing! Actually, I didn't mind any of it except the wind. The snow made the pine trees look like ghost trees.When I saw the coating of snow, I knew that I needed my new studded tires to stay upright. A few days ago, a similar dusting made me crash on hidden ice. I'm horrendous at mechanical tasks, especially installing tight new tires early in the morning, and my husband came to the rescue. A task that would've taken me at least a half hour (optimistically) took him about 10 minutes. Voila - almost magically awesome traction! In the right photo, photogenic K sits next to my brand new studded front tire.



Thanks to those tires, I confidently navigated even a ledgy trail that I knew harbored ice under the new snow. This trail is one of my favorites because it's challenging and lots of wildlife use it.















Along the ledgy forested trail, K and I found Blue Grouse signs. I saw tracks and K picked up the scent. In a flash, she flushed the grouse off the forest floor. The grouse looked awkward taking off and gained altitude slowly. But, as usual, he outfoxed K and taunted her from high in a tree that was swaying in the wind. K must wonder why I never do my job of shooting the grouse so that she can retrieve it. She stands and stares at it, waiting for it to fall so that she can bring it to me. I feel bad - she ended up with the wrong human!

I started wondering why a grouse was hanging out on this west-facing windy slope. When we see grouse, they're always on the forest floor, and snow covered everything that I thought was edible. Moreover, the icy wind made it feel like the Arctic - although I guess the grouse normally wears a down coat! Some research told me that Blue Grouse prefer to eat conifer needles in the winter. They like Douglas Fir and Lodgepole Pine needles, and those two species dominate the forest where we saw the grouse. Moreover, they're picky eaters - they specifically like needles that are 1-2 years old, and they eat only the ends of the needles. The image to the right is borrowed from North American Birds Online and shows a Douglas Fir branch after a grouse has munched on the lower needles.

After dropping off K, I headed out on my own and the wind seemed to rise to the occasion. In a fruitless attempt to stay out of the wind, I dropped down low to an unexpectedly wind-blasted reservoir. Believe it or not, this freezing spot is where I saw flowers blooming the other day. I was too cold to search for them today.I climbed from the water's edge in a gulch thinking that the wind would be gentler down low. Instead, the gulch funneled the wind directly in my face, slowing my progress to a walking speed. The climb took 50% longer than usual. More than once, the wind literally stopped me and I put down a foot to avoid being knocked over. The one upside was that I was climbing toward blue sky. I kept reminding myself to climb patiently - not to get angry at the wind. I found myself ridiculously chanting in my head - I love the wind, I love the wind!

A girl and her dog

Yesterday, the dogs and I headed out for our afternoon hike at the usual time - but it wasn't sunset yet! The one and only thing that I like about the shorter winter days is that I'm often on the trails for sunrise and sunset. Yesterday afternoon, although it wasn't quite sunset, the low angle sunlight illuminated only the top branches of a towering aspen grove, with the almost full moon rising in the background.

We cut through this grove to the meadow where I immediately noticed the more than 100-strong elk herd amassed on the eastern edge. The dogs frolicked, completely unaware of the herd because they stood 75 yards downwind of us. This oddity emphasized to me how much human perception which relies mainly on vision differs from dog perception which relies mainly on scent. The presence of the elk herd fits with the fact that my neighbors have noticed that lion signs and sightings are most likely when the herd grazes in our vicinity.




Today, K and I had an unplanned special morning out on the trails. When we reached our usual turnaround point, K trotted on ahead and gave me a play bow and a look that said "Let's go have more fun!". I followed her spirit and we spent the morning exploring, running, riding, and hugging. She's such a wonderful friend - I truly dread the day that when our biking adventures together are impossible due to the inevitable march of age. But, today, I seized the day without worrying about the future, and had a blast with my dog friend whom I love so much.













We rode some trails that almost no one has used since the snow started accumulating in December, and we found some signs of the travails of wild animals. Kyna found a fairly old spine, pelvis, and hindlimb of a deer, and then seemed outraged that I was allowed to examine them but she wasn't allowed to gnaw on them (left photo below)!












Then, as we passed a beautiful view (above right), we found what was left of an elk cow carcass that the raucous calling of ravens led us to late last November (I'll spare you the photos). I think that our initial discovery was within a day of death. Meat-eating animals lurked all around the carcass - so I leashed K as we retreated to avoid an animal confrontation. We haven't gone near that spot until today. The ravens, lions, bobcats, and coyotes have eaten every last calorie from the skeleton. By examining the skeleton, I could tell that the animal wasn't old - it held no tell-tale signs of arthritis or old injuries. I suspect that it died a sudden death. This death of a young and probably healthy elk provides a cruel demonstration of the circle of life because its meat doubtless helped many carnivores through the winter.

For most of the morning, K enthusiastically galloped ahead of me. We came to a local trail that has just started appearing on some maps. Although it was deserted today, the ubiquitous plastic bag was sitting next to the trail - a practice that just started last fall when the new map came out. No one was parked at the trailhead so a previous hiker must have assumed that the trash collector services this trail. No wonder we dog guardians are so reviled by some trail users.




When I put the plastic bag out of my mind, the view was breath-taking. In the summer, we love hiking high in the craggy peaks shown in the photo, and I'm already looking forward to it!When we arrived home, K ate a big meal and then found a spot to snooze next to me in the warm sunlight. Dogs know how to live - run hard and sleep deeply.

A lion's territory

Yesterday's snow left a blank slate for animal tracks today. I rolled out the door on my studded mountain bike tires, hoping to avoid the skidding crashes of yesterday. As we rolled along, evidence of the night-time activities of animals abounded. We warmed up by cutting through the level meadow and saw that at least part of the elk herd, a coyote pair, and a bobcat had wandered through. As we headed up to a higher meadow, we saw tracks from a group of mule deer. We then circled through a boulder-strewn Ponderosa Pine forest and saw that a raccoon, a rare animal at our elevation, had waddled along the trail.

Then, it hit me like a jackhammer, the unmistakable tracks of the biggest predator that roams our forest. Our lion had patrolled his - and I do mean his - territory.

The mountain lion tracks met the trail in almost exactly the same place as the last time that I saw tracks near my home. They emerged from a pine-needle carpeted forest with rocky outcroppings as shown in the photo. I always watch those boulders as I ride past because I imagine that animals could lie still among them and watch me glide by.

K and I investigated cautiously, following the tracks a short distance in each direction. Unlike last time, K expressed interest in the tracks, sniffing them, and showing me where they went when we hit snowless patches. In the photo to the right, you can see the tracks in the snow where she's sniffing. Her interest worried me that the tracks might be fresh so we followed them only for a very short distance.

I followed them far enough to see that the lion followed almost exactly the same path as almost 4 weeks ago. I recognized a rotting log that he placed his giant paw on last time and again this time. And a shallow cave that he walked past last time and this time. Lions are said to patrol their entire home range over the course of weeks. Lion hunters use this information to ambush lions as they pass through certain locales at predictable intervals. It looks like our lion passes through our trail system every 4 weeks or so.

The left photo is a close-up of a single track with my 3.5" long handwarmer for scale. Notice that the track is as wide as it is long and has no claws. The right photo is K's comparatively narrow and small paw track.













Below, my foot provides scale for a close-up of a group of four paw tracks. Notice that the lion dragged his paws - that's odd because the snow is shallow, and his gait pattern indicates that he walked at a brisker pace than last time. In the other photo, the lion's tracks are to the left, registering in pairs. My friend's running tracks parallel the lion's tracks. I called her, and she said that the lion tracks were already there when she passed through about 15 minutes before I did. I was relieved because I'd been worried that perhaps the lion had been tracking her. However, we need to be extra-vigilant when we hike this trail with our dogs - it's a trail that we use almost every day and S is particularly vulnerable due to his deafness and stiff joints.























After investigating, K and I rolled on, thinking that our lion experiences were over for today. I pedaled and K trotted up to our favorite peak and saw stupendously beautiful mountains with a completely clear blue sky. Then, I tried riding our favorite forested trail but it had snow-covered ice. A mountain bike tire crossing that stuff is like trying to walk on a linoleum floor covered with ball bearings. I decided it wasn't worth risking another injury so we turned back.We mellowly rolled down toward the meadows. As we descended a loose rocky trail, I spotted two sets of tracks of animals sprinting furiously across our path. We again screeched to a halt to check things out. The tracks dug so deeply into the snow and dirt that few individual tracks were recognizable. I identified one track as elk. The other animal's tracks were huge and were tremendously widely spaced as if he'd flown long distances between touchdowns. After finding a few sets of these high speed chase tracks, I decided that we'd better leave - we were pushing our luck if there was a lion with freshly killed prey in the area.

I read an article (Beier, P. et al., 1995) that monitored lion movements using radio collars. Lions will hide, waiting to ambush prey, for up to 45 minutes at a time. They repeat this up to 6 times all night long, walking about a kilometer in an hour between settling in at ambush sites. They wait to ambush close to game trails where deer and elk will pass close by. I'm guessing that the lions know the 'elk superhighways' as well as I do. If a lion kills a deer or elk, he suspends hunting for 2-5 days and stays in the area to consume it.

Incidentally, I talked with a friend who found a lion-cached elk carcass in the area where I ran into the freaked out elk yesterday (less than a mile from where I saw the tracks today). Apparently, parts of the elk carcass were cached in a tree - a classic lion move. It seems that I'm not the only one finding many more lion signs than usual. I felt worried today - why are there so many lion signs right now? I guess it's that so many elk and deer are hanging around in our forests and meadows. The ungulates seem focused on our elevation - perhaps because we're just a bit below the snow-level where less grass is exposed.

After dropping off K, I did a uninterrupted ride mainly just enjoying rolling along on my bike in comfortable sunshine. I spotted some new tiny clusters blooming flowers on a south-facing dry slope - which was fitting because today feels like spring again.

It's not spring yet

The animals followed their spring rituals during yesterday evening's hike, even though the cold winter air had returned. A flock of Canada Geese flew north at dusk, honking as they stayed in their aerodynamic V-formation.
This morning, I rolled out on my mountain bike with the duo of younger dogs. We climbed up high to check out the Divide and the turbulent sky above the mountains gave mixed messages. A new coating of snow covered the craggy peaks.
Dark clouds hung over the mountaintops but blue skies topped off the picture, along all of the Divide that I could see.
During the ride, K resurrected her 'please recall me' game that she hasn't initiated in a couple of months. This game involves K 'hiding' and not revealing herself unless I use the magic words 'K come'. She loves to hear those words because of the celebration of treats and playing that she gets as a reward for coming when called.

Today, the spirit moved her to hide but her brother, R, showed me her hiding place. I noticed that K was missing but also noticed that R was staring pointedly into the woods. The direction of R's fixed gaze told me where K was hiding. The first photo is my initial view. K is visible in the far right of the photo only if you look very carefully. In the next photo, neither K nor I have moved - I've just zoomed the camera. The final photo is super-zoomed.

I wanted to avoid encouraging K to play this game because otherwise she spends too much time lurking in the woods hiding from me - so I didn't want to recall her. The strategy that I came up with on the spot was to make her jealous of R.

I called R to me by using just his name, and then gave him a bunch of treats. Jealousy brought K out of hiding. Ironically, I think that jealousy also drove K into hiding. She hasn't played this manipulative game since R stopped biking with us regularly. I think that K especially craves the special attention that she gets after a recall when R is distracting me.













After my 'dog ride', I headed out for a faster ride by myself. At the start, it looked like a benign weather day with mostly blue skies and some clouds blowing through. I was in for a surprise.

I rode along a sandy and rocky connector trail, and three elk thundered down the slope from my left (see photo), crossed the trail with a quick glance at me, and continued their downward gallop with barely a hitch. I've never seen elk looking quite so panicked. They usually saunter past me as if I'm no threat, and they're usually in much bigger groups. To add to the ambience, ravens were cawing up the hill where the elk had come from. I stayed stationary thinking that a predatory animal might barrel through after the elk but nothing happened. I'm not sure why the elk freaked out but the situation seemed odd. The sound of the ravens made me wonder if an injured or dead animal lay uphill where the others had come from. I decided it would be inviting a possibly dangerous animal encounter to investigate so I rode on.

I visually checked out the Divide because the weather there is usually a harbinger of what's to come for us. It looked a little bit ominous but not alarming.












I pedaled for about a half hour up to the first viewpoint on a ridge, where I saw that clouds now completely obscured the Divide. There was no sign that a mountain range sat to the west. A check over my shoulder showed that the storm had snuck up behind me and now surrounded me. Before long, the snowflakes started to fly.












Unfortunately, at about the same time that the snowflakes started stinging my face and obscuring my vision, someone nearby decided to target shoot with his automatic weapon. The combination of the snow rapidly hiding the ice patches and the incessant booms of the gun freaked me out. I don't do well near guns due to a past horrific experience.

I was relieved when I finally made it to the trail that descends from the ridge down to a gulch, muffling the booms of the gun. I rapidly started the descent, fleeing the wind-driven snow and the booms, and promptly crashed on snow-covered ice. I hit hard on my left side but was lucky not to be hurt. Unfortunately, I was near the area where I recently saw a lion. So, I resisted the urge to take a break to pull myself together and kept moving.

By the end of the ride, I was happy to escape the snow whipping in my face. For the first time in a week, we built a fire and relaxed while watching the winter weather outside. It's not spring yet.

A blooming flower and a coyote-dog theory

Last night's cloudy, but dazzlingly bright, sunset told me that a storm was sitting on the other side of the mountains, and our springlike weather might be winding down.
This morning, signs of spring were bursting out even though the air felt wintry. I was back in my full winter garb for riding but the cold air felt invigorating. March and April usually bring the biggest snowstorms, and a cloud front moved onto the Divide this morning. Sometimes the storms creep over the Divide and give us snow... and sometimes they don't. The meteorologists must hate trying to forecast our weather because the Divide seems to add a random factor. This morning, even when K and I tunneled through a low aspen forest, the threatening sky loomed.

K and I headed out on our own this morning as R was running with my husband. K loves getting all of my attention - it seems that the youngest dog usually hogs disproportionate attention because he needs the most training. Today, I could ride along relaxing with my reliable partner K.

We rode up high to get an overview of the storm and literally saw it moving in over the course of our ride. It never breached the Divide but it enveloped it.












As we rolled along a forested trail, even I could smell that a skunk had sprayed his noxious scent. I wish that I knew the mysteries of what the animals do when no one's around. Did a mountain lion, bobcat or coyote attack him? If a coyote gets sprayed by a skunk, will its packmates allow their companion to get close to them despite the stench? Actually, I'm so fascinated to learn more about the animals in our forest that I'm going to buy a 'trail camera' that'll remotely take photos when a motion sensor is triggered. It'll be a fun project to figure out the best animal trails for the camera.

Years ago, we went through dogs-getting-skunked phase, when we lived in another part of the country. One time, our two dogs got skunked in the face at close proximity while out running with my husband. As luck would have it, he had a rental car while ours was being fixed - and had to load the skunk-reeking dogs into the rental car to go home from the trail. Believe it or not, after he literally poured boxes and boxes of anti-odor powder into the car and then vacuumed it, we didn't get charged extra for the skunk stink by the rental company.

Today, I kept K in a heel for quite a while after smelling skunk - I have no desire to live with a dog that smells like skunk for weeks after the noxious spraying. I've seen only one skunk here in many years - likely because we're technically a smidgen over their preferred elevation range.

After riding the high ridges, we swooped down through our meadow on the way home. I viligantly watched for coyotes. After reading Hope Ryder's book, God's Dog, about her coyote research, I feel certain that the coyote behavior toward our dogs in this meadow is territory-based. When K saw and chased the coyote recently, the coyote did not start to flee until K had closed to within 30 yards or so. Then, he didn't appear to be running as fast as K - even though I'm almost certain that he could at least match her speed. My guess is that he wanted her to catch up so that they could sort out the territorial issue. In fact, after I recalled K, he didn't continue fleeing but stood there defiantly. I suspect that my dogs' scents permeate the entire meadow, which is an intrusion into the coyote's territory.

Ryder describes similar chasing behaviors among competing coyotes near the boundaries between territories. What she observed was that the coyote being chased didn't move at top speed and then stopped mid-chase for a confrontation. Among coyotes, like wolves, a ritualized dance of aggressive and submissive body language ensued. Every incident that she observed ended with one coyote being submissive to the other and leaving - she didn't see actual physical violence among the coyotes.

I think that K's behavior toward coyotes parallels her behavior toward trespassers on our land - supporting my idea that her coyote interactions in the meadow are territory-based. Although she's matured enough that she'll respond to a recall now, she used to take off like a streak straight at the trespasser and completely ignore me. If the trespasser was a human, she'd look very serious during the chase but then launch into her wiggling 'I'm so happy to meet you' demeanor when she arrived at the person. If it was a dog, she'd posture a bit before letting the tension go.

If she actually caught up with the coyote in the meadow, I wonder what she'd do. I think that coyote ritualized aggressive-submissive behavior is too different from dog behavior for them to negotiate. That's probably why these dog-coyote confrontations usually end in physical conflicts that the dogs lose. I've handled wild-caught coyotes, and they move with lightning quickness. They can rip their teeth into a person before she even thinks about reacting. I suspect that a dog is similarly mismatched in close combat with a coyote.

Today, after dropping K off at home, I rode some of our freakishly dry trails. In sandy and rocky soil down near water, I saw my first blooming flower of the year - it was small (half inch across) but in blossum! I believe that it was a Storksbill (Erodium cicutarium).














A recent study reviewed in Audubon magazine compared flower blooming dates from Henry David Thoreau's notes of 150 years ago to blooming dates in recent years. On average in Concord Massachusetts, flowers bloom 3-4 days earlier now. But, a couple of species bloom 21-32 days earlier today than in Thoreau's time. The potential problem is that the animals who depend on those flowers for food or who pollinate those flowers might not change their timing in sync with the flowers. For example, bugs who rely on nectar from the flowers might hatch at the same time as 150 years ago and miss the blooming peak. The bottom line is that 'global weirding' is not just affecting Greenland and the Arctic but is also affecting mid-latitude America.

After seeing my first blooming flower, I climbed up high and saw the Divide lurking behind the clouds. Then, in the last mile, I saw another Mountain Bluebird on a meadow's edge. I wonder if the arrival of the bluebird is linked to the emergence of a few bugs. I've seen flies, wriggly terrestrial arthropods, and butterflies in the past few days. Bluebirds prefer to eat insects but will also eat small seeds and berries in the winter. I've also noticed that the bluebirds disappear from our high elevation when we have a spring snowstorm. I suspect that they flee to the refuge of the lower plains.
















This evening's hike was fun but the sunset itself was muted. Since last night's sunset was perhaps the most spectacular one that I've seen here, I've included another photo of it. The sky lit up like it was burning behind the mountains. I was distracted by keeping the dogs from chasing a herd of six mule deer, likely the same ones as we've been seeing almost daily. The deer no longer seem very afraid of the dogs - they act like they expect that the dogs won't truly pursue them. The deer don't even move out of sight while I recall the dogs. So, then we launch into repeated recalls, as the dogs realize that the deer are still lurking nearby after each recall. The upside is that R is getting a ton of practice recalling off of running deer. That'll serve us well for years to come.