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This just in: I will no longer be posting my bird and wildlife photos here on the Noyes Family blog (I’m sure you’re all heartbroken!). I’ve decided to keep this website strictly family/kids.
But for the two or three of you who are interested in my photography, you’ll be able to sleep better tonight knowing that I will be launching a new blog for my photos. So go there now. Bookmark it. Put it in your feed reader.
It’s called Colorado Clix.
Let’s just say I’m pretty excited today. Last night my deacons presented me with a Nikon Fieldscope for my birthday/pastor appreciation. This is a high power spotting scope that will bring animals (or whatever) that are hundreds of feet away right up to your face. The best part? Nikon makes an attachment for my D80, so I can digitally photograph those up close images. It’s called digiscoping, and I can’t wait to get started. Get ready for some “up close and personal” wildlife shots!
Last night I had the unique opportunity of going into the national park and observing part of a government study on bat populations. If I remember correctly, this study is part of a follow-up to a similar project conducted in the ’80s, with the goal of comparing the results of the bat species in various parts of the park to see how things have changed/remained the same.
(Pallid Bat)
The researchers use a special type of bat netting (pictured below) to capture the bats. Although you can see it in the flash photo below, once dusk settles in, it is virtually impossible to see even with the human eye. The nets are set up in areas (mostly along pools of water) where bats tend to travel. When they fly into it, they get tangled up and the researches can then handle them and take down the information they need.
(Bat Net)
It was a relatively slow evening. We only ended up with three bats in hand, even though they were flying all around us. Only a few nights before they captured ninety-five bats in another part of the park. I believe they had counted a total of fifteen or sixteen different species.
(Fringe-Tailed Myotis)
The three species we saw last night were the Fringe-Tailed Myotis, the Pallid Bat, and the Hoary Bat. The first two were rather gentle, but the Hoary Bat was downright ferocious. Needless to say, I didn’t handle any bats, but I was thrilled that they let me come and take some pictures. It was definitely a “Discovery Channel” moment.
(Hoary Bat)
As I’m sure most of you know, Julie is due with our fourth little one this November. The question that has been a point of no small contention 
around our place is whether or not we should find out what we’re having.
Here, we are at odds.
I do not want to know. We found out with each of the first three kids ahead of time. I think it would be fun to do something a little bit different and be surprised this time around. It would add to the excitement of welcoming our fourth baby into the world.
Julie, on the other hand, is the planner extraordinaire. She likes to have all her ducks in a row, so to speak. I don’t quite understand why that’s so necessary. I mean, when it comes to things like filing important papers, scheduling our family life, vacations, etc., I don’t bother with any of that stuff. It just magically happens, so I’m not sure why she worries about it so (detect in that a glowing compliment and praise toward my wife).
At any rate, she wants to know and I don’t. So we’ve worked out a compromise. On Monday Julie has her first appointment where the doctor may be able to tell us what we’re having. Here’s our deal. If he is able to tell this time from the ultrasound what we’re having, then we will find out. If he’s not sure, then we never bring it up again. We just won’t find out until the delivery.
The appointment is Monday. I’ll keep you posted…
As many of you know, Brennan is in his second season on the Rangely Hurricanes swim team. He competes in the Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Freestyle, as well as individual medley events. This summer he competed at meets here in Rangely, Ouray, and Glenwood Springs, where we have had the joy of camping in both our tent and our Durango! This weekend we go to Grand Junction for what will probably be our final meet until the Western Slope championship meet at the end of the summer.
The photo above is of a kickboard with his awards pinned to it. His best meet was by far in Ouray, CO, where he competed against 30 kids in his age group and came home with a first place medal as well as three second place medals. Way to go, Brennan!
The swim season has not only kept Brennan busy, but myself as well. I have been working toward becoming a USA Swimming Stroke and Turn Judge, so I can help officiate meets. I have four hours of training left, and hopefully I’ll be certified after this weekend.
I’m happy to announce that I filled my elk tag this morning, which means now we can fill our freezer for the year.
Not much of a story to tell. We found a herd of elk feeding a ways off the county road and made short hike up a small hill. This cow was standing about 75 yards away down in the flat. It was a quick out and back in, which is always nice.
(You can click on the photo for a larger image.)
I normally don’t make a practice of traipsing around on frozen lakes, but sometimes you have to make a few exceptions, especially when it comes to fishing. Today some friends and I traveled about an hour and a half to a lake up in the mountains to give a go at a little ice fishing. I’d never tried it before, but in my humble opinion, it beats just about any other kind of fishing I’ve ever done.
Walking out on the frozen lake (pictured above), was a little odd at first, but it was frozen about 6-8″ thick.
We set up an ice fishing tent, which actually keeps things quite warm. It was snowing outside, but you could sit inside the tent with a t-shirt on.
Pictured above are the holes we used to fish, along with a flasher (a very cool device that tracks the depth of your jig and the location of the fish).
We were fishing for trout, and we each caught our limit. Tomorrow they should make a nice meal.
Over 40 inches have now fallen since the end of November. Here I am with a snow rake (yeah, I’d never heard of one either), trying to get some excess weight off the roof. In the parking lot next door is a massive pile of moved snow about 10 feet tall. The boys are having fun digging tunnels through it and making a fort when the temps aren’t too cold to be outside. We’ve had some balmy days in the high 20s, but also a few days of -20 below (and frozen pipes to go with it).
The good news is that all the snow has brought a wide variety of unusual birds to my feeders. Don’t miss the new shots of the Bohemian Waxwing in the flickr sidebar to the right.
If you were watching the national weather the last few days, you may know that a major winter storm just moved through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, bringing with it several feet of snow.
As it turns out, I was in Denver when it hit, and my only option for getting back home was to drive right through it. The interstate through the mountains was packed with snow, and there were no visible driving lanes save the tire tracks made by previous vehicles. Through the canyon areas on the west slope I hit terrible blowing snow, limiting visibility to just a few feet.
When it was all said and done, it took me about nine hours to make what is normally a five hour drive. I’m glad to be home.
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The picture above was taken today of a road near our house.
The recent change in seasons brought with it a change in the species of birds we’ve been seeing around the house. Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed the appearance of chickadees. As a began to take a closer look (especially as I was photographing) I realized that we don’t have just one species of chickadees, but two.
We have the black-capped chickadee (pictured above), as well as the mountain chickadee (pictured below). You’ll notice that the mountain chickadee has white stripes above the eye, whereas the crown of the black-capped chickadee is solid black.
(I took both photos in our front yard.)
View more by category: Outdoors (25), Brennan (24), Gracie (18), Philip (17), Thad (12), Wildlife (9), Emelia (9), The Noyes Boys (6), Julie (5), Just For Fun (3). Or by month: June 2009. Or visit the Complete Archive.
