Morning Walk Part One- Colorado Foothills

After a wonderful conversation with someone in the UK this morning, I went for a walk in the foothills. I began walking from the parking lot along a gravel path. Random runners and mothers running with strollers passed me every few minutes, looking at me as though it was odd I was walking.

There was barely a cloud in the sky. Far to the north, faint hues of cirrus whispered across the sky. A cold wind blew between the gaps in the foothills. I began to mentally prepare myself for a cold hike, but looked up ahead hopefully at a small ridge that I hoped that sheltered from the wind.

A few minutes later I cut off from the gravel trail and began making my way across the field. Meadow Larks dropped their songs into the air like cold water trickling over rocks Their nebulous voices always leave me completely unsure of where they are. Sometimes I feel sure they are only 25 feet away, only to find out they are over 200 feet away. They almost always are perched atop some yucca flower stalk or scrub oak branch. Not only do their feathers camouflage them very well, they also reflect light with the same intensity as the dry prairie grass, making them blend regardless of what angle you may be searching from.



The field slowly began to bend upwards into a ravine. As I scanned the hills for deer and birds, something white caught my eye. It was the remains of a deer. Teeth marks riddled the remains of the spinal column where raccoons and mice gnawed on the bones through the night to get much needed calcium. I have found deer bones almost every time I have gone hiking in the foothills.



Some birds caught my eye up the hill atop some rocks. A brilliant blue flash let me know mountain bluebirds were about. I stalked up to them, my presence quite obvious, just attempting not to scare them away. I managed to snap a few photos before they flew down over the ravine to the next rise in the land. The longer I watched, more of them alighted from around me, 18 in all, male and dusky female alike.



I waited for a few minutes, hoping they would return to the prominent rock I flushed them from, but they didn't. I continued up the ravine, and it flattened out momentarily before sloping up into a deeper ravine. My time living around the foothills has been quite the study of microclimates. There are such sudden changes in this land, and such sudden changes in the vegetation. What first strikes me as a bleak landscape, always diverts my attention to what signs of ecology are present, and it always seems to start with the geology, but I'll save that for the next entry.