I have to say, this has been a spendid autumn, as fall colors go in the high country of Colorado. Sometimes we get too much rain and sometimes we get an early winter storm that blows the leaves all the way to Nebraska. But this year we have been blessed with warm calm days, and the colors are fabulous.
Quiet has returned to the mountains. The labor day holiday has marked the unofficial end of summer and thousands of tourists with their RV's and trailers have headed back east to their homes on the great American flatlands. Wildlife are tentatively returning to their favorite feeding grounds, and they didn't seem to worried about a lone photographer. In fact they seemed to recognize me from the quiet months I spent with them, prior to the summer invasion.
Action with the great birds in Eleven Mile Canyon got off to a slow start on Friday morning. Crowds of fishermen arrived early, filling the canyon with dust, and scaring away the birds. As we were repeatedly passed by anglers from the city roaring up the canyon, we knew our morning was going to be limited.
Many mornings as I sip my coffee, I try to think of locations where I might find new adventure and capture amazing scenes that I haven't yet experienced. Most of the time nothing comes to mind, and I just head out to my nearby trail for some exercise. However, I'm also often astonished at the surprising experiences I encounter there.
A sure sign of the advancing season is the arrival of juvenile osprey to the canyon. Each spring our osprey nesting pair returns to mate and raise a new family of chicks. They travel thousands of miles from their winter vacation to meet at the same nest and greet their lifelong partner for the joyous event. As August nears, their young gain stength and skill and finally take flight in a burst of energy, hope and a bit courage too I imagine.
It was supposed to be a regular photo trip to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. However as it has been so many times this summer, photography in the Refuge was a stunning failure. Birds we have seen in abundance the last few summers are strangely absent. The coyotes were sleeping and the bison nowhere to be found. That's when it began... our short road trip was extended.
I know my July newsletter is a bit late, in fact tomorrow will be August. Summer photography is a struggle for me, the sunrise is way too early, all the good wildlife locations are crowded with tourists, and the animals scarce. However, in just the last few days beautiful song birds have returned to my usual hikng location, and the pelicans have reappeared at Manitou Lake. Stay tuned to my blog though, on the 1st of August, we will be visiting the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Area in search of burrowing owls and snowy egret!
There's nothing like a piece of new gear to jump start waning interest in an old hobby, and my new Garmin 22x GPS handheld should do the trick. Back in the day, before blogging and vlogging were even a thing, and social media wasn't an idea yet, I was posting trail reports on my website.
For many of you who have been following my blog for many years, the Three Amigos are a familiar sight. But after a long cold winter, it always brings my heart joy to see them in the spring, happy, healthy, and still together after almost a decade of following them.
Finally getting to my May newsletter, after a month of hard work on my new substack account. May has been an exciting month, with the end of the long Colorado winter, and the return of many species of birds to the high country rivers and lakes.
Colorado Photographer / Author | Steven W. Krull 