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On my walk along the South Platte this morning, I encountered a large flock of cackling geese, resting on the river.  Prior to 2004, these "small Canada geese" were considered to be subspecies of their larger cousins.  They are now classified as a separate species though they, themselves, are represented by several subspecies. After nesting on the Arctic tundra of Northwest Canada and Alaska, cackling geese winter in the Pacific Coast States or in the south-central U.S.; their numbers seem to be increasing along the Colorado Front Range, both during migrations and throughout the winter.  When mingling with Canada geese, cackling geese are relatively easy to identify due to their smaller size, stubby bill, shorter neck and, in some subspecies, a white collar at the base of their neck.  They also have a higher-pitched call than Canada geese and, in my experience, tend to be calmer and quieter when resting on lakes or rivers. Cackling geese are perhaps easiest to identi...

Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, on the Missouri River floodplain, is best known for its water birds (waterfowl, waders, shorebirds, pelicans, etc.) and its raptors (especially, of course, its bald eagles).  As a result, many visitors focus on the fields and wetlands, ignoring the woodlands unless it happens to be the spring warbler season. On this sunny but cold morning, the pools were frozen, occupied by only a dozen trumpeter swans and a modest number of mallards and gadwalls.  And while the raptors were represented by a lone bald eagle, four red-tailed hawks and a red-shouldered hawk, there was not much activity on the icy fields.  I thus turned my attention to the riparian woodlands that line some pools and the Missouri River; this decision was rewarded with the sighting of about 20 species, including a pileated woodpecker, a fox sparrow and two red-breasted nuthatches (the first I have ever encountered at Eagle Bluffs). While not as spectacular as the favored quarry,...

Ah the sight of snow geese in the morning!  Arriving at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area just before dawn, I encountered a large, restless flock in one of the fields; having spent the night at the refuge, they seemed anxious to continue their journey and, within ten minutes of my arrival, they exploded into the air, circling overhead before heading down the Missouri River Valley. During my ninety minute visit, I was fortunate to see eight more flocks of snow geese, coming in from the north and east and passing above the floodplain refuge as they angled southward.  In all, I estimate that I saw at least 2400 of the hardy and vocal travelers on this cool, cloudy morning in central Missouri. While I also encountered a good number of raptors (including two bald eagles) and a fair diversity of waterfowl (including ten canvasbacks), I had come to see snow geese and my effort was rewarded beyond expectations.  The stirring spectacle of migrant snow geese is always the highlight of...

As I walked along the South Platte River on this bright but chilly morning, I spotted a coyote on the opposite bank, nosing his way through the thickets.  It soon became apparent that he had injured one of his back legs and could not bear weight on that limb. While we are entering the season when predators generally have an advantage (leafless foliage, dry grass and active prey), I wondered if this wounded hunter will make it through the winter.  No doubt, it will be harder for him to chase down rabbits and other agile prey. Then again, coyotes are intelligent and highly adaptable creatures, adept at surviving in remote wilderness as well as in rural and urban environments.  Known to take advantage of human garbage and dog food, they also feed on carrion, berries and domesticated animals in addition to a host of wild birds and mammals.  My bet is that he'll manage just fine. 

On this chilly, autumn morning, with a full moon balanced on the foothills to our west, I went down to South Platte Park, hoping to encounter fall migrants.  The early morning chill had brought out the songbirds, flitting and twittering among the shrubs and trees, but all was relatively quiet on the lakes and river. During my one hour visit, I did observe two flocks of blue-winged teal, passing overhead, a handful of pied-billed grebes and a pair of Wilson's warblers, down from the mountains.  That was the extent of the autumn migration, a tide that has not yet gained momentum.  I did see plenty of permanent and some summer residents, including an osprey, a great horned owl, gray catbirds, double-crested cormorants and wood ducks, but the migrants have been slow to appear. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant walk around Eaglewatch Lake.  I got my exercise, enjoyed the fresh, cool air and appreciated the company of the resident wildlife.  The migrants will turn up so...

While the afternoons are still summer-like along the Colorado Front Range, the mornings now bring an autumn chill due to the longer nights.  Down on the South Platte River just after dawn, that chill was especially intense and, in response, the wild residents were noisy and active. Canada geese, mallards, magpies and cedar waxwings were especially conspicuous and migrant ducks were beginning to arrive from the north; this morning's visitors included blue-winged teal, American wigeon and gadwalls.  A few summer residents still remain and a lone snowy egret, huddled on driftwood in the shallows, seemed to be contemplating his escape to warmer climes.  Normally nocturnal, a beaver was active in the post-dawn chill, inspecting his dam before winter arrives. We humans, like the wildlife, are also invigorated by the chilly air and the riverside path was filled with walkers, bikers and joggers.  After all, the fall equinox arrives this weekend (September 22) and the gloriou...

As we witness the tragic flooding from Hurricane Florence along the Southeast Coast, we are reminded of the devastation in Houston caused by Hurricane Harvey and the repeated spring flooding along some American Rivers (the Red River of the Northern Plains comes immediately to mind). Having decided that flood insurance is a money losing proposition, private insurance companies have backed away from such coverage, donating that option to the Federal Government.  As is often the case, the U.S. Government accepted the challenge and is now billions of dollars in the red (even before the devastation caused by Hurricane Florence). One wonders whether Federal dollars would be better spent buying up properties on floodplains and barrier islands and assisting with local engineering efforts rather than encouraging insurance holders to rebuild in those flood-prone areas.  After all, global warming is threatening coastal communities as sea levels rise and will likely intensify the power of...

After my recent travel to beaches and coastal wetlands of the Southeastern U.S., I thought I would visit Coastal Colorado  today, a term I have previously applied to the lakes, gravel pits, sloughs and canals across the South Platte Valley of northeastern Colorado. Unlike the Southeastern wetlands, those of the South Platte Valley are not characterized by lush, verdant vegetation.  Rather, in this semiarid climate, trees (mostly plains cottonwoods) are found only along the river, its primary tributaries or irrigation canals.  Since this summer has been especially hot and dry, the natural grasslands have browned, adorned only by clumps of prairie sunflowers and rabbitbrush.  Though I saw hundreds (if not thousands) of American white pelicans (especially at Barr Lake State Park), most avian species were limited in number; among these were Swainson's hawks, American kestrels, western grebes, cattle egrets, Franklin's gulls, American avocets and shorebirds that were too ...

On this pleasant morning in central Missouri, a friend and I headed down to Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, on the Missouri River floodplain.  Bird sightings were far from spectacular though a large number of great egrets and great blue herons were encountered.  The highlight of this morning's visit was the sighting of a river otter, feeding in a channel at the south end of the refuge. Nearly extirpated from Missouri in the early 20th Century, river otters have made a dramatic comeback due to a reintroduction program that began in the 1980s.  Now found in rivers, large creeks and lakes throughout the State, these large mustelids feast primarily on fish, crayfish and amphibians; the young are born in late winter and family groups may be found throughout the year. Since river otters are primarily nocturnal, they are not regularly observed by the general public and are more abundant than most of us might suspect.  This morning's sighting was thus a special and unexpecte...

Mention the State of Mississippi and most Americans likely think of Delta cotton fields or beautiful Gulf beaches bracing for the next tropical storm or hurricane.  But most of the State is covered by forest and woodlands, a fact that I confirmed as we traveled through Mississippi yesterday. Returning to Missouri, we entered Mississippi west of Mobile, Alabama, and exited the State just south of Memphis, Tennessee.  From the Alabama border to Hattiesburg, we undulated through the De Soto National Forest, crossing the Chickasawhay and Leaf Rivers, tributaries of the Pascagoula which enters the Gulf of Mexico.  Between Hattiesburg and Jackson, the terrain leveled out as we crossed the "pine belt" before reaching the Pearl River, which also flows to the Gulf. North of Jackson, woodlands still predominate but are broken by small farms and ranches and by wetlands along the Big Black River and the upper tributaries of the Yazoo River (all of which flow westward to the Mississip...

The Florida Panhandle is known for its sparkling white beaches, a trait that results from their composition.  The "sugar sand" of this region is composed of fine, ovoid quartz crystals, eroded from the Blue Ridge Mountains and deposited in the Gulf of Mexico by the Apalachicola River. Spread by currents within the Gulf, the quartz crystals are a primary component of beaches all along the Florida Gulf Coast but are least "contaminated" with shell fragments along the Panhandle.  In beaches along the Florida Peninsula and Keys, variable amounts and color of shell fragments alter the appearance of the sand; in some areas, the shell fragments predominate and the beach is gray, tan or nearly black. Here on Pensacola Beach, the white sand is dazzling in the bright afternoon sun, squeaking beneath your feet and producing a sharp contrast with the clear, turquoise water of the Gulf.  As one might expect from the above discussion, shells are small, mostly white and far less a...

Since the red tide was worsening on Longboat Key, we decided to head to the Northern Gulf Coast and settled on Pensacola Beach, an area that neither of us had visited.  The seven hour drive was uneventful, rather devoid of interesting wildlife; an exception was a huge number of cattle egrets on ranchlands to either side of Interstate 10, just west of Interstate 75.  Also of note was the change in character of the rivers, from the clear, tea-colored water of the peninsula (flowing through limestone and sandy soil) to the muddy water of the Panhandle rivers, draining the clay soils of the interior. Nearing Pensacola, we cut south on Route 281, crossing the broad east arm of Pensacola Bay to Gulf Breeze before continuing out to the narrow barrier island of Pensacola Beach.  As is typical of the Northern Gulf Coast, Pensacola Beach boasts a scenic strip of white sand, backed by modest dunes and hotels.  While it is surely a delightful location for sun worshipers, surfers...

Yesterday morning, we left Knoxville, driving eastward through the foggy Tennessee Valley.  After crossing the Holston and French Broad Rivers (which join to form the Tennessee), we climbed into the Blue Ridge Mountains, following the course of the Pigeon River.  Leveling out west of Asheville, we crossed the divide between the Pigeon and the French Broad Rivers, encountering the largest concentration of tent caterpillars that I have ever seen. At Asheville, we angled southward on Interstate 26 and crossed the Eastern Divide just south of Hendersonville; this Divide, which snakes north to south through Eastern Canada and the Eastern U.S., separates the watersheds of rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico from those flowing toward the Atlantic Ocean.  South of the Divide, we soon arrived at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and were treated to a spectacular view of the Southeastern Piedmont. After undulating across the Piedmont, hemmed in by a pine-broadleaf forest, we cr...

On our way to a family wedding in South Carolina, my wife and I left Columbia this morning and drove eastward across the Glaciated Plain of Missouri.  After crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in St. Louis, we angled southeastward across Illinois, eventually fording the Wabash River (a major tributary of the Ohio) before climbing across the Shawnee Hills of southern Indiana (capped with Pennsylvanian sandstone). After crossing the Ohio River at Louisville, we drove eastward through the Bluegrass Region of northern Kentucky (underlaid with Ordovician Limestone), crossing the Kentucky River near Frankfort and again south of Lexington; the Kentucky flows northward to joint the Ohio.  At Berea, we climbed onto the Appalachian Plateau (a layer cake of Carboniferous sediments) and crossed the Cumberland River (another tributary of the Ohio) in southern Kentucky.  Entering Tennessee, we climbed across the Allegheny Front, the high, western edge of the Appalachian Platea...

Last evening, my son (a pilot) and I took a flight across the Colorado Piedmont , south of Denver.  Leaving Centennial Airport an hour before sunset, we headed west to Chatfield Reservoir and then turned south, following the base of the foothills. Crossing over Roxborough State Park, adorned with scenic rock formations, we could see the prominent peaks that rise along the South Platte River Canyon to our west and southwest.  Farther along, we passed the craggy mass of Devil's Head and continued up the Plum Creek Valley to the Palmer Divide .  Angling to the east, we followed the Divide for a short distance, catching a view of Monument and Colorado Springs in the Fountain Creek Valley, off to our south.  After curving across the upper tributaries of Cherry Creek (which eventually joins the South Platte in downtown Denver), we passed above the mesas and buttes that characterize the scenic topography of the Castle Rock region. As we headed north, near Sedalia, the sun s...

During a brief stay in central Missouri, I took my oldest grandson down to Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area.  Though he is a novice birder, his attention span remains short, ensuring that our visit would be relatively brief and efficient. Unfortunately, we were greeted by dense fog in the Missouri River Valley and our initial leg through the refuge offered only brief glimpses of the wildlife.  But, by the time we turned back at the south end of the floodplain preserve, the sun had taken its toll on the haze and we were rewarded with a good variety of species.  Turkey vultures, great blue herons and great egrets were most abundant (if you don't count the red-winged blackbirds and indigo buntings) but we also saw bald eagles, wood ducks, a double-crested cormorant, belted kingfishers and a mix of shorebirds.  Highlights, new to my grandson, were a pair of American avocets and a small flock of blue-gray gnatcatchers. While our visit was short and the weather was not ideal...

This week, I started reading Cold Mountain , by Charles Frazier, some 20 years after its initial publication.  This highly acclaimed novel is set in the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains during the Civil War; much to my delight, it is accompanied by a map of that region, an area through which I have travelled on many occasions. Before getting too far into the novel, I decided to review the topography of the Southern Blue Ridge, with specific attention to its major rivers.  The mountains themselves stretch along the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, extending into northwestern South Carolina and northern Georgia; their highest summit is Mt. Mitchell (6684 ft.), in North Carolina.  This swath of highlands is bordered by the Ridge and Valley Province , to its north and west, and the Southeastern Piedmont to its south and east.  The eastern section of the Southern Blue Ridge is drained by the Watauga River, flowing northward to the Holston River, and the Catawba River...

On this cool, breezy morning, I took a walk along the South Platte River before summer heat enveloped the Front Range.  Once again, low water attracted a variety of herons and egrets to the river shallows while cormorants fished in the deeper pools and a host of swallows strafed the water surface for insects.  A family of belted kingfishers lounged along a beaver pond and black-billed magpies were especially noisy and abundant.  But the highlight of my walk was the presence of a golden eagle, perched in a tree along the river. Not nearly as common as bald eagles and ospreys along this stretch of the South Platte, golden eagles are more frequently observed in foothill canyons or near buttes and mesas on the High Plains where they nest on rock ledges.  Nevertheless, they may be encountered in rural areas of the Colorado Piedmont, hunting for prairie dogs, ground squirrels and rabbits; these powerful raptors are also known to kill grouse, wild turkeys, fox, fawns and yo...

Due to the hot, dry weather (and primarily due to reduced water release from upstream reservoirs), the South Platte River was very low this morning, attracting a variety of waders and shorebirds; among these were great blue herons, snowy egrets, black-crowned night herons, killdeer and spotted sandpipers. While focusing in on one of the great blues, I watched as he suddenly jabbed into the tall riverside grass and turned back with a small mammal in his formidable bill; too large to be a field mouse, I suspect it was a meadow vole or a young muskrat.  After dipping it the river to moisten the fur, the heron tilted his bill skyward and swallowed the victim in a single gulp; he then resumed stalking the shallows for his next snack. Though we often watch herons and egrets in wetlands and along shorelines, feasting on small fish or aquatic invertebrates, we are undisturbed by their natural activity.  But when a large heron grabs a small mammal and swallows it whole, we empathize wi...

While birds and birding are the subjects of most posts in this blog, I am personally most interested in ecosystems and in the landscapes that they occupy.  Landscapes are the products of geology, tectonic forces and erosion, the latter occurring primarily by the action of water or ice.  Terrestrial ecosystems reflect the underlying geology and topography, the regional climate and the availability of water (in the form of precipitation or surface water brought in by streams). It is with this knowledge that I focus on watersheds as I travel about our country or the globe and even pay close attention to them within my home cities.  Water, after all, is both essential to life and the primary architect of natural landscapes.  Understanding the regional topography requires that we know its component watersheds, from the main rivers to their smallest tributaries. In the U.S., some States greatly assist our effort by using road signage to demarcate the watersheds (North Caro...