Colorado
In May, my friend Gabby, and I took a short trip out to Aurora, Colorado to visit our friends Lila and Drew. Our first adventure was to Dinosaur Ridge in hopes of hawks and good views. We traversed up the ridge stopping to admire the incredibly well preserved prehistoric footprints alongside of the mountain. We decided to hike up Dakota Ridge Trail where we were met with breathtaking (literally) views of red rocks amphitheater on one side and downtown on the other. As we turned around to head back down the mountain, we saw two white-throated swifts zoom past us. We doubled back and watched them fly by us a few more times high up in their element while we gasped for air realizing our first hike as Floridians was a lot higher than we intended. We slowly made our way back down the mountain enjoying the views and ease of the hike compared to the way up. About halfway back to our car I had heard the familiar sound of tiny wings beating accompanied with an unfamiliar trill. A broad-tailed hummingbird! We were able to pinpoint which branch it was perching on and watched it fly back and forth from the powerline back to the branch calling out and showing off to any other broad-tail in range.
The next day we went out to Barr Lake State Park, the weather was cold and windy and Gabby and I were having some serious rental car issues. At first it seemed like the day was going to be a bust when we found out we had to wait for a tow truck. We tried to make the most of it and spent time meandering the different trails. As we killed time walking around the lake, the winds seemed to switch in our favor. We saw many different species, but my personal highlights were two western tanagers, a green-tailed towhee, and(right as our Uber pulled up) a red-headed woodpecker! It seemed like all of our unluck was a reminder that incredible things are happening around us if we take the time to be present.
We finished our trip stopping at Jewell Wetlands Park because Lila knew I wanted to see as many magpies possible and boy was that the place to be! The park was a perfect little pocket park where I got to add to my list Say’s phoebe, clay sparrows, and black capped-chickadees. The trip was entirely too short but well worth it. Overall I saw 11 new species, Gabby added 47 new species to her list, and Lila added 2 to her list as well making our trip one for the books!
