ESTESBOG

Summer weather on the high plains can accurately be described as long periods of boring interspersed with brief periods of potentially fatal. At about 4 p.m. on August 16th I stepped out of my laboartory in Brush, Colorado to see this tornado stretching across the sky directly to the south as a thunderstorm began to graze by the eastern edge of the town. It was too far away for me to see the base and know whether or not it was touching the ground. Later we learned that a barn about ten miles to the south was turned into kindling and scattered over a mile-long stretch of prairie. A valuable stallion in the barn was injured so badly it had to be put down.

A twister of this type is sometimes called a “rope tornado.” I’ve seen a bunch of ropey funnel clouds, but never one that descended all the way to the ground. I ran to my car, got out my camera and snapped a few shots. An hour later on my home computer I sent the shot included here to the Denver NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV, Channel 9. Weather forecaster Kathy Sabine ran the shot 4 times between 5P.M. and 10:30. The next morning John LaPorte of the Fort Morgan Times called to say he’d seen the shot and asked if I’d share. It spanned the upper front page of Tuesday afternoon’s edition. http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/ci_15804119?IADID=Search-www.fortmorgantimes.com-www.fortmorgantimes.com

This little wildlife drama was photographed and described to me by fellow photographer Mandy Colburn of Fort Morgan. Mandy’s 11-year-old stepson, Ouray Ocanas, is an exceptionally observant nature nut who seldom misses an interesting snake or bug or mammal in his wanderings.

            One day last summer Ouray noticed the family pack of weiner dogs were excited about something on the back lawn. Going to investigate, he spotted a gray and black object in the grass and it was moving. It was a baby bat. Assuming it had lost its mother, and knowing enough about bats to realize he probably shouldn’t handle it directly, the boy put on some heavy work gloves to capture the little bat and put him in a terrarium. He figured that the baby bat’s mother could access the baby through the open top and the little animal might be at least somewhat protected from cats and other small terrestrial predators.

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