On our last day in Colorado Jen and the kids were busy getting ready for their upcoming trip to Puerto Rico, so Tyson took us on a much-needed walk before we started our long drive to Santa Rosa. There weren’t quite as many birds as we had seen on previous walks, but I managed to get a nice shot of a Northern Flicker marching across the field

and of a Great Blue Heron dining on frog legs.

With few birds in sight, I shifted my attention to the nearby flora and was delighted by the many flowers along the trail, particularly since I had no idea what they might be.




The only one that looked familiar was this one, which looked like a dandelion. I’m not sure it really is a dandelion, though. If it is, Colorado produces much bigger dandelions than the Pacific Northwest does.

We’ve gone to Colorado so often in the last twenty years that it seems quite familiar, but it only takes a short walk to realize that there’s still much we don’t know about it. Of course, the same could be true of Theler Wetlands which we walk much more often.