More Hiking

We have gone hiking twice this week, seeing more wild flowers, more rodents and more birds. Tuesday, we hiked Rock Canyon, a beautiful area of the park. We saw this pair of evening grosbeaks.

We even came on a waterfall in the canyon--something special here. We have ponds, but no creeks or streams of note. It had rained the night before, however, so the water was running down the canyon.



The hike took us by Geer Pond, which we had seen before. It is the prettiest pond in the park.



This family of mallard ducks was swimming there.



As we walked along one section of the trail, there were a number of small, dark butterflies. This one stayed still long enough I could take it's picture.



These are some of the wildflowers we saw.
Does anyone know if this is a cinquefoil or leafy potentilla?


These are wild roses.



This isn't a very good picture, but I believe the flower is a miner's candle--if so it is very appropriate for this area. We are near Cripple Creek and Victor, major gold mining areas.




I think this is called a shooting star.



This morning, we hiked on the School Pond and Stoner Mill trails. We spotted a red-winged blackbird and some other bird I couldn't identify and didn't get a good picture of. We also saw several clusters of these yellow flowers. I can't figure out what they are.



In my last post, I said I couldn't get a picture of the chipmunk that has been eating on our doorstep. I think it lives in the tree outside our front window. I was able to get this picture of it.