Outdoors

The snow falls in big fat globs of collected flakes. Wet and sticky, it is collecting rapidly on trees, shrubs and what few perennial herbaceous plants have had the nerve to put forth new shoots already.

It is May, and one would expect to see May flowers blooming, but alas, they are not. At least they are not blooming in any numbers. This is our seventh month of winter, and I am not happy to see more snow falling. However, such weather is expected in springtime Colorado where cold arctic air bumps into warm Gulf Coast air fairly regularly.

This coming Saturday, May 8, is International Migratory Bird Day, which will be celebrated locally at the Evergreen Nature Center from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

International Migratory Bird Day is a celebration of one of the most spectacular events in the world, the annual migration of birds. The day officially takes place on the second Saturday in May every year in most of the United States. However, it is celebrated at different times in different places due to the variation in migration.

As I was coming home from a late trip to the library and grocery store, it was almost dark as I came up the hill when an American robin flew across the road right in front of me. I braked and he landed in a ponderosa pine in the yard, the same tree that a pair of robins has nested in for the past several years.

All through late March, there have been reports of large flocks of blackbirds moving through the area: 150 in Kerr Gulch, 200 in Kittredge, 100 at Morrison, etc.

We also have had more red-winged blackbirds at Evergreen Lake than there were this winter, so that means some migrants have arrived. The flock is much more talkative than it was, and males are displaying their red-shoulder epaulets, which indicate that some females have arrived and picked out nesting sites that must be defended.