Return to Arapaho NWR

We arrived back at Arapaho NWR on May 31 after a 3 day drive from Texas. This year we are joined by our good friends and fellow volunteers, Wally and Carolyn. We have volunteered with them before and look forward to working with them here.

We returned, as did the Tree Swallows from Mexico. We enjoy watching them raise their family.

We noticed the mountains have very little snow this year, compared to last. As a result the rivers are very low with many of the irrigation ditches dry as a bone. This part of Colorado appears to be in a drought now.
One of the first jobs was working at Mortenson Lake NWR counting Wyoming Toads, an almost extinct species. We didn't find any toads, but we did find this interesting nest containing Red-winged Blackbird eggs, along with two brown headed cowbird eggs.


After we got settled, we spent a day driving Cameron Pass to Poudre Canyon (Hwy. 14) all the way to Fort Collins and back.




We had our first moose spotting of the year.




In Fort Collins we had a nice lunch at Austin's American Grill in the historic downtown district. After lunch we took a tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.

We enjoyed the special selection of beers in the Hospitality Room. We tried three beers each plus a 4oz. taste of the new Wild Blueberry Beer. This is considered more of a dessert drink. Kurt loves blueberries, Virginia, not so much. We tried Leffe, Landshark, BL Platinum and of course, Budweiser. As a side note the tour guide mentioned that the state of Texas consumes more Budweiser than any other state. Soooo after consuming a quart of beer each we were all set for the long twisty turny ride back home!!