(Be sure to see Part 1, posted last week.)
I was still smiling happily at the thought of having finally seen a Flammulated Owl—a new life bird for several of us that evening. Because the females spend every hour of daylight inside the nest with their young, you can only see them at night—flying around catching moths in the dark. Meanwhile, the males spend their days in a tall pine growing on top of a (usually inaccessible) ridge, roosting right up against the trunk on a high branch. As they sit motionless for hour after hour, they are nearly impossible to spot; their feathers are a perfect match for the reddish-brown Ponderosa bark.
If Brian hadn’t graciously allowed us to accompany him, it’s unlikely I ever would have checked this species off my life list.
Here in Colorado, January is a time of muted shades—tan grasses, soft yellow willows, maroon sedges, gray seedheads—and erratic weather. Highs in the 50s are immediately followed by snow or a sub-zero wind-chill. I was craving green leaves, bright colors, tropical humidity against my chapped skin. In the midst of suspended existence, I needed a fix of fecundity. So last Saturday, my husband and I paid a visit to the tropics. We drove to Broomfield, just west of Denver, home of the 
Mountain Plover 