The life bird I saw this morning was a Cinnamon Teal (duck). It was actually a drake and his hen. I said “Look at that there red duck.” To which Matt replied, “Yes dear. I see the duck.” Then me: “It’s red!” Then he: “Yes, it is red.” Then we walked home with our small duck dog and I hopped online to look up red ducks.

A small, brightly colored duck, the Cinnamon Teal is found in ponds throughout the American West. Cinnamon Teals are the only ducks with separate breeding populations in North America and South America. Unlike most North American dabbling ducks, the Cinnamon Teal rarely breeds in the mid-continent prairie-parkland region. The female Cinnamon Teal builds her nest below matted dead stems of vegetation so it is completely concealed from all sides and from above. She approaches the nest through tunnels in the vegetation. Since we saw our Teals among the cattails in the wetland, I wonder if she is considering nesting there. I must do more spying.

At twelve thousand feet the winds blow mercilessly and the ravens caw and wheel through the air.  In the valley below me the Fall River runs narrowly between towering granite peaks.  Above tree-line, where the air is thin and my eyes water from the gusts, I feel a brimming emotion, like coming home after a long journey.  There is no experience like that of literally being on top of the world, of sitting in the shelter of a tall boulder, watching marmots waddle around their dens and big horn sheep pick their way carefully up the slope.  There is a certain grace that comes with making yourself vulnerable to the elements; putting yourself in a position of earthly insignificance, no more and no less important than the scattering of wildflowers around your feet.

For many hundreds of years this mountain corridor has been traversed by means of trails.   The first trails were not consciously designed, but rather paths of least resistance.  The Ute Trail (which shares the corridor with Trail Ridge Road) is widely considered the best representation of just such a “first trail” in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Prehistoric nomads were the first to cross this corridor, then the Ute and Arapaho and Cheyenne, trappers and miners, intrepid explorers… and then those such as myself, wandering tourists.  The tribes used the corridor to get to Spirit Lake (now Grand Lake), the source of the Colorado river.

In the early 1900s, towns such as Estes Park and Grand Lake began to attract enough tourists for the state to become interested.  The American past-time of scenic motoring was on the rise and the state was looking for ways to capitalize on this new trend.  In 1913 the Estes Park Protective and Improvement Association made a proposal to the state for a road that would connect Estes Park and Grand Lake by way of Fall River Valley and Milner Pass.  The plan was for the construction to be done by convicts from a Colorado state penitentiary.  Who can say if the motive for convict labor was a charitable attempt at rehabilitation through back-breaking work or just a money saving ploy?  Most likely the latter since after only three miles the convicts were deemed too slow and private contractors took over the job, finishing the winding Fall River Road after seven years of toil.

For six years the Fall River Road was the only means of a direct route from Estes Park to Grand Lake.  The drive was formidable even in the best of weather because of the steep grade and hair-raising switchbacks.  Weak engines and gravity-fed fuel systems forced some early vehicles to drive back-wards up the mountain.  Even today, visitors of the road are cautioned to use lower gears and turn off air conditioners to avoid overheated engines.  In 1926, the Bureau of Public Roads sent a survey team to find an alternate, less arduous route through the pass.  Trail Ridge Road was completed in 1932 and to this day is the highest continuous highway in the continental United States.  The success and popularity of Trail Ridge Road caused the re-purposing of Fall River Road into a drivable nature trail.  The eastern half was turned into a nine mile, one-way scenic drive called Old Fall River Road and the western half was either abandoned or paved over by the new highway.   Improvements to Fall River Road have been infrequent in the last ninety years and you can still see the stone retaining walls built into the hillsides during the 1920s.

Each new mile of the Old Fall River road initiates the traveler into the wonders of a mountain ecosystem.  The road begins at 8,558 in what is called the upper- montane zone.  Stopping my car at the first switchback, I walked along a little trail into the mixed forest of Douglas-fir, quaking aspen, lodge-pole and ponderosa pines.  I could hear a stream off to one side and the characteristic call of the mountain chickadee.  Back in my car I passed mile marker one, the upper limit of the montane, and saw ahead the grand peak of Mount Chapin.  Around the next corner was a sign that read Chasm Falls.  As I hiked down the slippery granite path to gaze up at the twenty-five foot falls, the highest in Rocky Mountain National Park, two red squirrels chattered at me from the limb of a spruce.  I continued to stop at each pull-out, noticing the subtle changes in forest life that came with the climb in altitude.  Mile four marked 10,000 feet, the subalpine ecosystem, home to deep winter snows and dark, dense woods.  Some  subalpine trees can reach extraordinary heights of over one hundred feet if undisturbed by disease or fire.  By the time I drove into the parking lot of the Alpine Visitor Center, I had passed through the Krummholz zone and into the alpine tundra.  I stood looking down at the tree-line nearly one thousand feet below and gave an exhilarated laugh.  What took early explorers days to negotiate, I had achieved comfortably in a few relaxed hours.

The naturalist John Muir advised, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you… while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”  And so, with a simple drive up an antiquated road I renewed my love for the mountain wilds of Colorado.

- excerpt from Bird Memories of the Rockies by Enos Mills

A good thing to remember when I get obsessed with my check-list! Seeing a new life bird is a thrilling moment but it never beats the familiarity of sitting near a flock of busy sparrows and feeling like you’re with old friends.

Here are some of my Rocky Mountain National Park bird pictures:

Common Raven hanging out at 12,000 ft elevation

Magpie on fence at 9500 ft.

(see more RMNP photos here at my flickr site)

and the Lark Sparrow:

Lark Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

and that silly Pied-billed Grebe:

sneaky sneaky grebe

sneaks out into the open

then back into the weeds

(see more Riverbend Ponds photos)

1. All About Birds, www.allaboutbirds.org

I use this site like a field guide. Their bird identification program is great. They also have a blog called Round Robin and neat features like “bird of the week” and “sound of the week.” This site is part of the famous Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

2. American Bird Conservancy, www.abcbirds.org

I go to the Latest Press Releases link on the ABC site. Lots of important news on bird conservation around the world.

3. American Birding Association, www.aba.org

This is the site for birding. They are in charge of adding birds to the checklists used for bird field guides, they gather records of Big Days and publish the results, they list rare bird sightings, they host the major birding conferences and conventions… if you are interested in becoming a birder, you have to visit.

They also are a supplier of Song Bird Coffee. What is Song Bird Coffee? Well, the ABA puts it better than I could so I’m going to cut and paste: Shade-grown coffee is a general term used to describe certain aspects that are common to traditional coffee farms in the Americas and other parts of the globe. The older varieties of Arabica coffee continue to be grown under the shade of trees in order to retain and nourish the soil and moderate the heat and light reaching the coffee plants. Farms that mimic forest conditions suit the physiology of coffee, originally an understory plant in the wild. In many cases, the shade trees are of one or a few species that had been planted expressly to shade the coffee. In other places the coffee is grown under thinned forest cover containing a mixture of local species. Depending on the species of shade trees and the structure of the tree cover, anywhere from a few to scores of species of resident and migratory birds will use the coffee farm for forage and shelter. Ornithologists have documented the importance of shade coffee habitat in the increasingly deforested landscape of the Neotropics. The move to modernize the coffee sector, begun in the 1970s and continuing today, involves replacing the traditional coffee varieties with newer hybrids that have been developed for sun tolerance and compact growth, therefore yielding more coffee per hectare. The flip-side is that more chemical inputs (fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides) are needed than in traditional cultivation, and, of course, the land is denuded of trees. Ornithologists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have shown that bird species diversity is often at its highest in trees where coffee is grown as an understory crop. In fact, shade-coffee plantations are second only to undisturbed forest as the best habitat for birds in Latin America.

So. Buy shade-grown coffee. The end.

4. National Audubon Society, www.audubon.org

On this site you can read back issues of Audubon Magazine, learn about top birding trails around the country and top national wildlife refuges. You can also find your local Audubon Society chapter. It’s good to be connected with your local chapter because they often give free talks, guided nature hikes, bird surveys and more. The Audubon website is a good place to look up your region’s birding festivals.

6.11.09      1:00-1:30 pm

Cloudy and damp, 70 degrees

Birds seen:

Double-crested Cormorant, 3

Great Blue Heron, 1

Mallard, 2

Barn Swallow, 5+

Z’nah and I ate lunch at Rolland Moore Park (designed in part by my dad). We sat by a sweet little pond that had some sort of flotation device in the middle resembling a crashed satellite. I’m not sure if it was originally intended as a perch for water birds but that’s definitely its major use now, judging by the guano coverage. There were three double-crested cormorants and a great blue heron sitting on it. Big birds. They were so still for so long, it was like looking at a picture. Then Z’nah sneezed…

and they moved quite quickly!

6.5.09            2:00-2:30

Overcast, 75 degrees

Common Grackle, 4

Eastern Kingbird, 1

Red-Winged Blackbird, 5+

American Robin, 2

Blue Jay, 1

(See more Magpie Meander photographs…)

McMurry Natural Area

6.5.09     2:30-3:15

Overcast, 75 degrees

Red-Winged Blackbird, 3

American Coot, 1

Bullock’s Oriole (female), 1

Mallard, 3

Mourning Dove, 4

Eastern Kingbird, 1

Northern Flicker, 1

   
Eastern Kingbird

     
Bullock's Oriole, female 

(See more McMurry Natural Area photographs…)

Riverbend Ponds Natural Area

6.5.09             3:30-5:15

Overcast, 78 degrees

Great Egret, 2

Snowy Egret, 3

Great Blue Heron, 1

Yellow Warbler, 2

Common Yellowthroat, 5

Bullock’s Oriole (male), 1

Red-Winged Blackbird, 10+

Canada Goose, 15+

Osprey, 2

Eastern Kingbird, 1

Mourning Dove, 3

American Robin, 2

Blue Jay, 2

Common Grackle, 1

Yellow Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Great Egret

Great Blue Heron

Snowy Egret

Osprey drinking

(See more Riverbend Ponds photographs…)