Hot Sulphur

After a week in sweaty, sweltering Memphis, visiting family, I was in bad need of a cool, mountain river fix. Headed up to my fav spot on the Colorado near Hot Sulphur Springs. On the way down the west side of Berthoud Pass thought I'd come across an accident or something. No, it was a large, brown Black Bear up on a cut just watching the crowd that had stopped to gawk at him. I think he wanted across the road, but wasn't sure about all the gawkers gathered alongside the road.

Made it to my fav spot. Actually my really fav spot under the Cottonwoods was taken, so settled for next best. No shade, but actually closer to the river. River-sound was a primary requirement
this time. Not a lot of bird activity that afternoon, so I focused on flowers. Nice variety of Scarlett Gilia, Penstemon, White Thistle and a small, ground-cover like - I think Figwort family member, the small single blossom flower shot - I've found there for years growing admist some dumped concrete.

Magpies woke me up about dawn. Got up and made some coffee and struck off birding. Shot a pic of my camp across the river as the sun was coming over the mountain. Found a Green-tailed Towhee catching some bugs. I like their rufous caps.

On the way back to camp, I stopped to talk to this lady camped down river of me. She was telling me how she'd gone up to Steamboat to camp and get away from Denver, but had found the campgrounds more like small towns. She'd just driven down the road and found this spot by luck. I noticed something small and brown on her car's fender. At first I thought it was a pet mouse or something. "Do you know there's a bat on your car"? "Oh, my god, how'd that get there?" It was a small brown bat that appeared to have impaled it's wing on her radio attenae. I asked her if she had a fire glove or something. All she had was some rubber gloves. I got out my bandana and just touched the creature. Man, it chomped down on that bandanna and hooked it's wings and feet into it. I used it to lift the creature up and over the antennae. Got it off and set it on some branches. We got to talking about camping and then she asked how the bat was. It was gone. Guess a punctured wing hadn't done it in, gladly.

Got back to camp and noticed some Red-naped Sapsuckers back in some willows where they'd been about dusk the night before. Had been too dark for pics. I shot them with all this sap on their beaks. I'd noticed how'd they'd been hammering away on those willow branches the night before. Now, those limbs were dripping with sap. Guess they'd set-up their breakfast the night before. Very aptly named birds. Very pretty.

Drove over Cottonwood Pass - how many Cottonwood Passes are there? - that cuts over the hills avoiding Grandby. It's almost 9,000 at the summit. Very green and the understory of the Aspen and bettle kill Lodgepole was just covered with Columbine. Just beautiful.

What a relief to be back in nice cool, dry, sunny Colorado after that week in Memphis.