Susan Writes

I looked forward to seeing wildlife while vacationing with Daughter’s and Son’s families in Fraser and Winter Park, Colorado.

            As soon as I sat on our condo balcony, a hummingbird swooped a little too close.  A robin perched atop a blue spruce and looked like a topper on a Christmas tree.  An iridescent black bird that looked like a crow, marked white on its wings and body, squawked as it flew past. 

            He’s the cousin of a crow and raven: a black-billed magpie.  Magpies were everywhere I was for five days.  On hiking trails in the middle of the forest.  At a concrete skate park in downtown Winter Park.  Among the natural undergrowth and trees surrounding the condo complex.  Magpies were easy to identify, and I sometimes heard their loud, harsh cries before I saw them. 

            Early one morning while I sipped my first cup of coffee, two female mule deer grazed nearby.  Their long ears turned toward me when I stepped outside, but obviously not feeling threatened, they lowered their heads to pick the wild grasses.  I sat quietly watching these animals that have broader chests and are more stocky than the white-tailed deer here in Tennessee. 

            Another morning, deer wandered from a cluster of trees and sauntered near the condos for their morning feed. Then they turned, walked toward the trees, stopped, kneeled to the ground under a large bush, and tucked their heads. Was this their daily routine?  Their feeding lot? Their place for daytime naps?

            The only moose and elk I saw stood perfectly still on the sidewalks of Winter Park.  Huge metal statues.  The moose was dressed in a red and white coat and blue pants to celebrate Independence Day.  Maybe, I thought, I’ll see wildlife while riding home with Daughter’s family for two days across Kansas and parts of Missouria and Kentucky. 

            After a nine-hour ride we checked into a hotel in Topeka, Kansas, and I put on my tennis shoes to walk outside and stretch my stiff body.  A few steps from the hotel’s front doors, I saw wildlife that marks this trip. 

            A doe and four kits waddled from under tall shrubs and trees about five parking places from where I stood.  I froze in place.  I never expected to see a stench of skunks!  (Yes, a group of skunks is called a stench or surfeit.)  Momma Skunk led her babies from their protected hide-away onto mowed grass, toward the paved parking lot.  The kits, following Momma, tumbled over each other.

            At the concrete curb, Momma stopped, sniffed, raised her nose, sniffed the concrete again.  She turned around facing her kits, then stepped through them and ambled toward the bushes.  The kits followed.

            I hate the stink of a skunk’s spray, and never want to be near one, but seeing the doe leading her kits and watching them play, I hoped no one would find their hiding place.  Skunks eat rodents, beetles, and larvae, and scavenger animal carcasses so that busy intersection in Topeka should be varmint-free, unless skunks are considered varmints.

Filed under: Animals, Travel | Tagged: Colorado, mule deer, skunk, wildlife |