August 2009
Before leaving Estes Park we did get a little time for exploration in the form of a long walk around the lake. It was a good way to relax after the stress and enabled us to catch a little wildlife as well. Identifying the beautiful birds can be very problematic. Our books never seem comprehensive even if we have them with us and there are probably lots of variants just to confuse us further.
At Black Canyon Inn there was a colony of marmots living within one of the retaining walls for a terrace. They were all over the site during the day looking for the best vegetation to chew on and were undoubtedly secondary stars in the whole event. We could approach quite close to them but it was better if you just sat still and waited until they strayed close to you. The mother had several grown babies at this time of the year but she was always the boldest.

Large yellow bird seen on walk round Estes Park lake
Estes Park from the far side of the lake
One of the marmots who kept a close eye on the wedding
Beautiful moth that turned up on a fly screen
One of our woodpeckers decides to try the bird feeder on the back deck
An adult female mule deer with speckled young in foreground
A stag wanders away from the game camera
One human using Amelie to demonstrate the attention seeking behaviour of humans
Aspen, Bridget and Amelie out for a walk past the game camera
Chris, Jodi and Leila also find the game camera
An adult female mule deer - her young is close by but not visible

Back at our cabin we put two new bird feeders on a pole at the edge of the back deck. Once the local birds were used to it we had lots of visitors. The strangest of all these was one of our small nesting woodpeckers, either downy or hairy variety. We had not expected this but they seem to be more omnivorous than we had previously believed from their hunting excursions looking for insects and insect larvae under the bark of the trees. Welcome visitors anyway.

We have had our game camera on trees around the lot to see what comes by when we are not looking. We had no bears or bobcats this year but we did get lone does with young, spotty infants. It seems that they tend to be alone with the very young and team up with other mothers and young later on.

We only see mule deer although the elk seem to leave droppings in the spring before we arrive for the year in June or so.

Of course there is another whole category of mammalian life which appears in front of the game camera. Sometimes the camera seems unnoticed and at others these mammals seem to be posing. We assume that this just part of the behaviour patterns for this ubiquitous species.

Our time at the cabin has been short this year with the wedding and we find ourselves almost as excited as Gail and Tom at the prospect of our vacation in Europe in their company. Since we will only return for a few days in the autumn because of a technicality over the use of air miles, we pack up our camper and winterise it in the garage to keep it from freezing. We are already looking forward to using it again next year. We have also made the decision to cross the Atlantic again in 2011 with Skip as crew.

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