My friend Carol Bell invited me to visit her at her cabin in Grand Lake, Colorado, where she lives while volunteering at Rocky Mountain National Park. I checked the mileage - 627 miles from Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge and figured I could get there and back and have a couple of days to visit in a long weekend.
So I'm now visiting her and having a wonderful time, in spite of a day caught short by rain and lightening. I got here Friday in in time to relax on her deck and enjoy her hummingbirds. She has three species coming to the feeders - broadtails, a rufus, and a calliope. The day was getting cloudy, then got rainy so I didn't get pictures of most of them but did get a mediocre picture of the calliope.
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| Calliope Hummingbird |
After a delicious supper, all cooked by Carole, we went out to the park for a few hours. We saw at least 60 elk and three moose.
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| Part of a large herd of elk cows and calves |
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| Young moose cow |
Our plan for Saturday was to drive through the park, stopping to look at beautiful views and take a series of short walks to look for birds. Our first stop was to look at the Never Summer Mountain Range, just starting to get lit by the rising sun. I enjoyed the flowers blooming along the road and got Carol to stop ane let me walk back to look at Indian paint brush and other wildflowers. While I was doing that, Carol got a quick look at a small group of pine grosbeaks.
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| First look at Never Summer Mountains |
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| Roadside view |
Our next stop was at Lake Irene. We saw several species of birds, including a and a red crossbill, a lifer for me. All my pictures were blurry but Carol got a beautiful picture and let me use it. We also saw a Clark's nutcracker. And I enjoyed watching a really cut golden-mantled ground squirrel. And I was excited to find what I thought was a large patch of liatris was actually elephant head. This plant grows like liatris and is the same color but the individual flowers look like elephant heads.
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| Lake Irene |
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| Red crossbill |
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| Clark's nutcracker |
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| Golden-mantled ground squirrel fattening up |
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| Close-up of elephant head |
Then we went on up to the Alpine meadows to unsuccessfully look for the white-tailed ptarmigan; The views were lovely and we saw several species of birds, including mountain bluebirds and a horned lark. But no ptarmigan. We met a man who works for Audubon and Carol told him where the bird had been seen. I enjoyed just walking through the wildflowers and looking at wonderful views.
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King's Crown
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| Forest Canyon Overlook |
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| Lava Cliffs |
We planned to do more birding in the afternoon, over on the east side, but while eating a late lunch there, it began to rain in a series of short showers. Each shower got progressively stronger and then we heard thunder and decided to come home. We both enjoyed a short nap before I worked on editing my pictures while Carol cooked us another fabulous supper of pork loin, tomato and cucumber salad, and sauteed cabbage.
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| Tall coneflower and bee seen at our lunch stop |
Our plans for Sunday are to run a shuttle so we can hike downhill from the Alpine Visitor Center-
after all, it starts at 11,700 feet and comes down to the continental divide. We'll only have to hike 4.5 miles by doing it one-way. And sometimes white-tailed ptarmigan are seen there so I still have hopes of seeing one. Carol is also taking me to the volunteer get-together where we have a pot-luck of snack foods and a campfire.
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