ESTESBOG

SPRING MIGRATION APPROACHES ITS PEAK

How much things change in a week! Last week’s stars were multiple large flocks of Brewer’s and yellow-headed blackbirds. Yesterday it was big flocks of lark buntings and Spizella sparrows – chipping, Brewer’s and clay-colored. Joe Rigli and I saw one flock of buntings that numbered at least 250 and a mixed Spizella flock at least as large. The warbler migration still hasn’t peaked, but there are new species arriving every day. We saw our first blue grosbeak and our first woodland thrushes, looking very out-of-place in local sparse riparian habitats. Near Narrow’s Bridge yesterday we found two blue-gray gnatcatchers zipping around in the tangled twigs of a peachleaf willow. It’s a very uncommon species in these parts, but this is the third year in a row we’ve seen them.

 Another good sighting was a nearly simultaneous observation by Bruce Bosley of four cattle egrets in Washington County and two more by me in Weld County just after talking with Bruce by cell phone. Cattle egrets have retracted in range and have been nearly absent from this region for several years.

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Monday morning I had a doctor’s appointment in Greeley at 0800. Afterwards I headed to Brush to my office. It’s a little over an hour’s drive and, as I often do, I decided to take a “shortcut” on some back roads. My route took me to the eastern Morgan County town of Weldona and from there northward on an uninhabited series of dirt roads to the ridge along the Judson Hills and eastward to the escarpment above Wildcat Canyon. It’s dry, rugged country and usually chock full of birds.

It was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I was driving with the driver’s side window down listening for bird songs on the south slope of the hills when I heard a loud, sweet song. I stopped and backed up until I heard it again. It was a spectacular song, beginning with a slurred whistle followed by a complex series of trills. It was vaguely familiar yet not something I’ve heard very often out here on the northeast Colorado plains.

For a minute or two I was frustrated. I just couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Then I finally spied a pale little face staring out from inside a large, snowplow-damaged sandsage (silvery wormwood) shrub on the banking of the road a few feet away. As I focused the camera on the face, the little bird began to sing again. Wow, what a voice! Read more…

The week spanning the first of May is a special time for birders in Northeast Colorado. A few winter species are still lingering and a lot of migratory birds are just arriving. In the past week I’ve been to Denver (75 miles southwest of Fort Morgan) and back, Wray (100 miles straight east of Fort Morgan on the Nebraska border) and back, on a <2 mile walk on Brush State Wildlife Area, and on a drive up through Wildcat Canyon just north and northwest of Fort Morgan. My week list of birds follows: Read more…

SOMETHING WENT BUMP IN THE NIGHT

By Peter Walker

The human brain is a complex organ. There is still so much about this natural computer with its enormous capacity for data storage and retrieval that is a mystery to science. Obliquely, my story today is about a little used function of the human brain stem.

Evolutionists believe the human brain stem represents the original brain possessed by our reptilie-like ancestors millions of years ago. As such, it was not capable of very much thought, but it served to keep body functions like breathing and heart rate steady. It was also capable of conducting certain instinctual reactions to external stimuli – reactions like fright response.

Scientists today tell us that this thickening of the nervous tissues at the base of the human brain still serves these same functions. The brain stem tells the heart how fast to beat and maintains our breathing without our having to think about it.

But what about instinctual behavior? Is it possible to react to fright without thinking about it? Can the brain stem, in response to certain strong, primitive stimuli, take command of our bodies and attempt to deal with a situation while bypassing conscious thought? I’m here to tell you that it can. Read more…

Lark Bunting

I made the front page of our small town newspaper today with an account of my talk at the Brush Museum last Friday.