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Cicadian clicks Looking for love, but finding Mostly hungry birds Putnam’s cicada (Platypedia putnami) are common throughout Colorado and make a loud click, rather than a buzzing like many other cicada species. I’m not sure what local birds might eat them. In eastern Colorado, Mississippi kites subsist almost entirely on cicadas in the summer hatch…
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Green plastic ring thing Pink sock; pristine white paper Not digestible
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Quite a few of my ancestors lived in Indiana and Illinois during the Civil War era. Some of these relatives served in the Union Army. But these two states had many residents who hailed from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas. For that reason, some communities were torn by conflicting loyalties. Hunt’s book, published during…
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Enter the dragon Finds naught but parched ‘scape Conflagration soon
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A lonely cedar Perches regally on high Pride before a fall? Note: I use the word “cedar” here (seems more poetic), but this is actually a Utah juniper, Juniperus osteosperma.
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The peregrine dives Fastest bird on the planet A life for a life
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This is a literary novel. Not because it is long, dense, and difficult to read (it is none of those things). Rather, it is about literary subjects. The primary theme dwells on the art of biography. As the title suggests, what can we really know about the past, even if one is drowning in a…
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Snow soaks into soil Gravity attracts the rock A new resting place
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Solid breath sparkles Shod toes follow bare-paw tracks Not bears; chilly dogs!
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Picture yourself as a Victorian-era British spinster, religious and socially proper. Then put yourself alone on horseback in the undeveloped wilds of the Colorado Rocky Mountains…alone…in winter…at night. Surprisingly, that’s one of the more pleasurable aspects of Bird’s time in my home state, back before it was even a state. Last month I read a…