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When you read this, I should be in Colorado, visiting Rocky Mountain National Park. I won't be home until Tuesday. In the meantime, here's one of my posts from a visit I made to the park last fall. This year I'll probably be too early for most of the elk action but I'm hoping that I'll see plenty of birds instead.
I drove into the Rocky Mountain National Park at 6:45 on Sunday morning and immediately came across a group of elk grazing by the roadside. Suspecting that these might be the only elk I would see in the park, I grabbed a couple of quick shots in the low dawn light.
I needn't have worried! Over the next 6 hours I was to see a lot of elk: dozens, perhaps scores. My second sighting came as I was driving up to Upper Beaver Meadows and pulled into a picnic area to let another vehicle pass. To my surprise, three more elk were wandering among the picnic tables.
When I arrived at Upper Beaver Meadows, I was greeted by the sight of another group. Several does grazed peacefully while two young males practiced butting heads and the bugling calls of older bulls echoed eerily all around.
After leaving Upper Beaver, I drove around several different areas of the park and saw (and heard) many more elk. Some, like the doe below, were in groups.
Several were lone males.
After driving up to the Alpine Center and back, I returned to Upper Beaver Meadows just after noon. Following a small path into the woods, I hadn't gone 50 yards before I found I had strayed right into the middle of a group of resting elk.
None of the does seemed to notice me but a young male made me a little nervous when he showed some interest in my presence, stood up and walked over to check me out. I sat quietly down beside a tree and he seemed to forget about me.
BTW, until this point I had always thought of elk as being just like deer. However, seeing this young male up so close made me realize that elk are big - really big. In fact, they're at least a foot taller at the shoulder and more than twice as heavy as white-tailed or mule deer.
It wasn't until the young male wandered away that I was able to examine the group more closely - and to realize that he was not the animal I should have been worried about. The one that I should have been nervous of was a large bull sitting with a doe perhaps 40 feet away.
He looked me over quite carefully but must have decided that I wasn't a threat because he didn't even bother standing up.After I had been sitting with the elk for a while, another bull started bugling loudly from the edge of the trees. This really agitated "my" bull, who stood up and started bugling back.
Then he got to his feet and led his herd away, stopping every few yards to bugle back at the unseen male.
Deciding that anything else I saw in the park was going to be an anticlimax, I headed back to the car.
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.If my six hours in Rocky Mountain National Park had produced great views of elk, they had been much less productive as regards birds. I had seen remarkable few - and most were birds I had already seen earlier in the year in Utah, such as White-crowned Sparrows, American Crows and Black-billed Magpies.
American Crow
Black-billed Magpie
In the woodland areas, where the lighting was very difficult for photos, all I spotted were several Northern Flickers, Hairy Woodpeckers and my first Steller's Jays of 2010.
Hairy Woodpecker
The bird below had me puzzled for a minute, until it flew off in a blaze of blue. It was a Mountain Bluebird, another new year bird.
While birds were few, small mammals were plentiful. Squirrels were busy in the trees while Chipmunks begged for handouts at several of the roadside pull-outs.
An hour's stop at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center, just outside the park gates, was more productive for birds. Steller's Jays and White-crowned Sparrows were everywhere - but difficult to photograph!
Western Bluebirds were almost as uncooperative.
Mountain Chickadees were impossible - until one decided to check out my picnic table.
By far the most numerous birds were White-breasted Nuthatches, another new species for 2010. At one point, there were six or seven of them bustling around me.
A Final Site
On my way back to Denver, I stopped in for a quick walk around the Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR, where I had seen a good selection of birds a couple of years earlier. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky this time.
The Visitor Center area had Northern Flickers, Black-capped Chickadees and House Finches, while Ladora Lake had only a Ring-billed Gull, two Canada Geese and a handful of Double-crested Cormorants.
The grassland areas were busy with prairie dogs but the only birds I spotted were Mourning Doves, Western Meadowlarks, Black-billed Magpies, an American Kestrel and a Swainson's Hawk.
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.While I'm sorting out my notes and photos of wildlife from my trip to Colorado, here are some landscape photos taken on Sunday in the Rocky Mountain National Park.Upper Beaver MeadowsDriving up to the Meadows, you can't help but be impressed by the skyline on your left. This is dominated by Long's Peak (14,259 ft.).
Old Falls River RoadMost people who traveling up to the Alpine Visitor Center (11,796 ft.) drive up Trail Ridge Road, a well-surfaced modern road. However, I thought it would be more fun to head up via the Old Falls River Road, a 9-mile dirt road with innumerable hairpin bends and sections of washboard. And it was fun!
Alpine Visitor CenterThere was still a little snow up near the Center.
The view was worth the drive.
Trail Ridge Road
I drove this road on the way down from the Alpine Visitor Center.
Horseshoe ParkThis was the only section of the park where large numbers of aspen trees were really starting to change color.
Moraine Park
I was going to bird the campground here but it was absolutely crowded with people, cars and RVs. So instead I had a pleasant walk along the river bank.
The river was fairly slow-running and peaceful when I was there but obviously this isn't always the case.
P.S.
I entered the park at 6:45 a.m. and there weren't many other visitors around for the first couple of hours. However, by mid-morning it was much busier and it was already difficult to find a parking place at any of the major trailheads and viewing areas.
When I left, at around 1:00 p.m., the line of cars waiting to enter the park stretched several hundred yards. And this was in late September! (Although admittedly during a spell of glorious fall weather.) I imagine that most areas of the park must be quite unpleasantly crowded during the summer months.
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