For All Our Texas Friends and Family

Enjoy: 

We have heard that the temperatures in Texas have already hit the high 90’s. 

We drove over Wolf Creek Pass and into Pagosa Springs this weekend to celebrate Mark’s birthday.  There is still a lot of snow on the mountains. 

Continental Divide

Teri

Am I Blue?? or Pink??

We drove out through the foothills of the San Juan Mountains to see what we could find. We saw two types of Bluebirds, Mountain and Western.

Mountain Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird

Western Bluebird

Western Bluebird with a delicious worm

We found this Green-tailed Towhee feeding near the Western Bluebird.

Green-tailed Towhee

While driving alongside some cliffs, we saw this Great Horned Owl tucked up in a sheltered spot.

Great Horned Owl

And we got outstanding looks at a pair of Lewis's Woodpeckers near the Alamosa River. 

Lewis's Woodpecker

It is still getting near freezing each night so migrants are just beginning to show up.  Stay tuned for more!

Mark

Crazy Flickers

We enjoy watching birds a great deal, and woodpeckers are some of our favorites.  However, we have a local Northern Flicker who is driving us crazy!

He seems to think that his reflection in our windows is a rival, and so he lands on a window every few minutes and pecks on the glass.  Imagine hearing a loud THUMP every 2-5 minutes, followed by pecking and scratching.  It has gotten old, fast...

The source of our troubles:

Northern Flicker

We've tried drawing the blinds but it isn't making much difference.  We may hang some survey tape or other visual distraction on the windows until this Flicker gets the hint.  Anyone else ever deal with this??

Northern Flicker

Mark

A Little Bit Rattled

We were out exploring Forest Service roads on Saturday and stopped the truck to look for a geocache.  Just before we got out I heard a "hiss" that I recognized as a rattlesnake rattle.  It took a few seconds for me to locate the snake, and it turned out to be just a couple of feet left of the front bumper.

Western Rattlesnake

 This is a Western Rattlesnake, also know as a Prairie Rattlesnake.  In this area they are a pale greenish color. If you were following our blog last year you might recall that we had one of these on our front door mat.  We decided to move on and leave this guy alone.

If you want to get "up close and personal" turn up the sound and give this short video clip a look.

We are looking down a bit more these days!

Mark

8 New Holes In The RV

As you know, our RV looks West onto the beautiful San Juan Mountains.  We are at 7,500 feet and it can get quite sunny. 

When we ordered our RV we ordered a screen for the very large back window.  We’ve never regretted that decision.  We have stayed a couple of places where a screen for the side window would be very useful and here in the San Luis Valley is one of those places.  Our newly ordered screen arrived and Mark went to work attaching it. 

It’s a little scary drilling holes into the RV but the result is a good looking screen that will be very useful.  

It will be nice to be able to keep the inside shades open in the afternoon so we can see the mountains.

A Different Sort of Thunderstorm

We had a thunderstorm here today.  But instead of rain we got a mixture of sleet and snow! This area is so dry that any sort of precipitation is welcome, so we were glad to see the storm.  The forecast shows a chance of rain/snow/sleet for the rest of the week.  We'll see...

Our front steps.

Mark

Home for the Summer

We arrived at the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge in Southern Colorado yesterday and got ourselves set up.  It was easy because we're in exactly the same place as last summer.

We are parked behind an old frame farmhouse on a parcel that is now owned by the refuge.  The farmhouse is not livable, but all of  the utilities are here for a single RV.  We love this site because we're only 100 yards from the offices of the refuge, but we're on the other side of the road all by ourselves! You can see the roof and chimneys of the house behind our trailer.

Like most farmhouses in this area the previous owners planted trees for shade.  There are about 20 great big Cottonwood trees that provide shade and places for birds to nest.  The trees give us great shade until about 1:00 in the afternoon, but after that we get plenty of sun.

Our western view is of the San Juan Mountains, which still have a bit of snow on them.  All-in-all a pretty nice place to spend a few months!

Mark