Surprisingly there are many animals that have babies more than once a year.
Whether or not an animal can have babies more than once a year often comes down to the conditions where that animal lives. It is possible if the animal has an abundant food source and the environmental conditions are right, which means the weather is not too hot or cold for babies to be survive. Continue reading
Sometimes when you look up in the sky you may see what appears to be a circle around the sun or moon. This is what people call a halo around the sun or moon.
Seeing a halo around the sun or moon, similar to seeing a rainbow, does not happen very often and feels special when you see it. You never know when you are going to see it and you never know how long it is going to last. I have heard stories or rumors about that a halo around the sun means that a storm is on the way. I wonder if that is true? Continue reading
I love to look out over the Rocky Mountains after it has been raining. The air seems so clear and crisp. I feel as if I can see forever. I especially like when I a storm has passed over and I can look off in the distance and see a rainbow in the sky. There is something so magical about a rainbow. It is so fleeting, so surreal almost as if it is not real. If you look away and look back it may be gone already.
I know that rainbows form when there is rain or clouds in the sky and sunshine, but I was wondering how exactly do they form? Continue reading
It is always fun to be the first one up in the morning to be hiking along a trail in the Rockies. You are the first one there to wander along the trail and discover what happened to the area during the night.
Well, at least it is mostly fun. As a short dog I am able to run around and under things pretty easily. But, sometimes when I am the first one on the trail and I run or jump along I do have the misfortune of running into a spider web. It is always a weird feeling to be running along happily one minute and then the next minute to have a sticky web draped across my face.
I just don’t understand how that web gets there? How can there be a spider web across the middle of a hiking trail? That got me wondering how long does it take a spider to spin a web? Continue reading
I know that a lot of animals disappear during the winter, but I wasn’t sure how many of them stay in the Rocky Mountains and hibernate versus how many of them simply go somewhere else. So, I decided to do a little bit of research (which is super hard when you only have paws and no fingers to work a keyboard, but I managed to do it). Continue reading
If a bee stings you it will die.
If you are at all like me, then you have heard someone say this before. But, that is not actually true for most bees. There are about 25,000 different kinds of bees in the world with about 4,000 in the USA and even fewer in the Rocky Mountains. Of all those different kinds of bees, there is only one kind that dies after it stings you – the honey bee. Continue reading
Ribbit. Ribbit.
I know that is the sound a frog makes. At least I think it is a frog. I guess it could be a toad. Here in the Rocky Mountains we do have both frogs and toads.
A frog or a toad…I know they are two different kinds of animals, but they are really similar. I do remember that in one fairy tale the prince gets turned into a toad and stays that way until his true love give him a kiss. Or is it a frog that he gets turned into? Continue reading
Rabbit tracks
Sometimes during winter in the Rocky Mountains it feels as if the world is simply asleep while everything is coated in a blanket of white snow. Many animals, including me, are either not active are are less active. However, there are still some animals in the Rockies that are active and search for food during winter.
Any time you are out in nature you may not see many animals around, but you know they are out there. You know this either because you can hear them or because you are able to see evidence of them in the landscape, such as tracks or scat. Continue reading
Anyone that has spent time in or around the Rocky Mountains has probably seen fish in the streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds. Some of you have probably even tried fishing for them at some point. Well, a lot of those fish are trout.
Brown Trout – Not native
Fishermen love trout because they are challenging to catch and they put up a good fight if you actually have one on the line.
But, did you know that a lot of those trout in the water in the Rockies are not actually from the Rockies? There are many different kinds of trout that live in the Rockies and most of them were originally put there by people. Continue reading
I love running around the Rocky Mountains, jumping over logs, chasing squirrels, and drinking out of a mountain stream or just sitting in one to cool off on a hot day. In a lot of ways it feels like paradise since it is so much fun.
Unfortunately, there are a few things that can make a day in the Rocky Mountains a little bit less than perfect. The weather could suddenly turn bad with rain, thunder, or even snow. Or there could be biting flies around or even tons of mosquitoes. Anytime in the summer that you go up to the mountains you are risking running into these problems. But, in the winter, you don’t have to worry about the bugs and mosquitoes. Continue reading