Red-winged Blackbirds: Fierce and Flashy Territorialists of the Wetlands

The Mighty Monument Plant and Death By Exhaustion

The Monument Plant is monumental in size and reproductive ability. This giant that has graced Colorado mountain slopes this summer creates a huge seed bank when it flowers.  The thousands of seeds found on the gorgeous seed head represent a mighty effort at survival for the green gentian know  as “ big bang” reproduction or “death by exhaustion”.  In this podcast I discuss the natural history and interesting facts about the Green Gentian, formally Frasera speciosa, also called the monument plant or elk weed. This giant grows in mountain meadows and can reach 9 feet tall and live as long as 60 years. At the end of its orgiastic season of flowering, the giant plants die immediately and leave thousands of seeds to carry on their genetic legacy should their “babies” be fortunate enough to survive.

Saving a Species Is It Worth the Cost?

It’s a drab little bird — a brown sparrow, not even five inches long, that you wouldn’t give a second glance if it happened to hop across your path. The Florida grasshopper sparrow might be the one of the most endangered species  in the continental United States. Biologists are working hard to save it — and they think they’re making progress. But their efforts raise a persistent question: Why go to the trouble? It’s just a sparrow, after all. Sparrows are everywhere. Don’t we have enough of them as it is? And why should we care if a nondescript little bird — one that most of us will never see — slips out of existence? In this entry of Voices of the Valley Floor-a & Fauna we invite guest ornithologist to discuss the value of species including our threatened Gunnison's prairie dog.

Remarkable Birds: Food Selection, Foraging behaviors, Storage or Caching of Food

Birds can actually have awareness of behaviors of other birds...Jays that cache a seed and realize that another jay may have seen where the seed was hidden have been shown to come back later and re-cache the seed. Listen to learn about how chickadees carefully "weigh" the sunflower seeds at your feeder...and use a cost benefit analysis scheme. There are evolutionary reasons for this. This episode of Voices of the Valley Floor-a and Fauna explores the fascinating behaviors of our winter songbirds that visit our feeders. Photo: Black-capped Chickadee Photo Credit: Randy Stephens

Conifers: What are They, and How to Identify Colorado's Species

Learn to identify the conifers of our watershed as you take a drive with the author, Soleil Gaylord, and her father, Dr. Kent Gaylord, while motoring "up valley" from Placerville to Telluride town all-the-while scanning the landscape. Once in town, jump on Chair 7 and familiarize yourself with the conifers that grace the ski area.  Listeners will go away from this descriptive broadcast with a greater understanding of Colorado's iconic conifer species, from the Utah Juniper to the Subalpine Fir.  Photo: Valley Floor Blue Spruce (Picea pungens) with the "telltale"  or is it "telltail" drag in the photo is that of a Peromyscus, likely a Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). Hopping is their primary mode of locomotion so they generate those nice strings of matching prints with tail drags in between. Photo Credit: S. Gaylord 2021.

Red-winged Blackbirds: Fierce and Flashy Territorialists of the Wetlands

The song of the male Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) signals the arrival of spring. His familiar conk-er-eee call sweetens any walk along the river trail. This handsome fellow's common name comes from the red epaulettes that males flash on their shoulder often in tandem with the conk-er-ee clarion call. Red-winged blackbirds have been claimed to be one of the North America's most abundant birds. This species' success because can be attributed to their superb adaptations including a sharp Icterid or black bird style bill. These birds are also aggressive defenders of their territories and will bomb joggers and walkers that may threaten their nests. Listeners can learn more about this common member of the black bird family on this edition of Voices of the Valley Floor-a and Fauna.  Photo: Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) Norwood, CO  Photo Credit: Eric Hynes