Moose, Geese, and Pine Beetles

Aspen leaves

The national parks closed at midnight.  A gate slammed shut across the only road into Rocky Mountain National Park and the only good road serving the poor people in Estes Park, trying to recover from serious flood damage.  All federal park rangers and forest service employees have been dismissed without pay, as U. S. congressmen enjoy the continuation of their salaries.  The picture above shows where a visitor to the park illegally sneaked past the gate by another way.  You might report her to your congressman for disobeying his edict.  

So it was that I settled in today with Canadian geese for a temporary rest after a long drive from Pasadena and a long flight from Canada—the geese and I at Shadow Mountain Lake, taking in the cool, sunny morning.  

This bull moose did not get the word that the park is closed.  I came in the season of the rut for elk and moose, when males fight and females observe like women at football games.  This bull is alone with his harem, but he knows that challengers will come.  I would like to watch as they fight over me—or her.  

Young lodgepole pines

Dead lodgepole pines

While aspen blaze brilliant yellow and orange, lodgepole pines do not celebrate the coming of winter, or any other season.  Their old are mostly dead and their middle-aged are mostly sick.  The young look on with sad expectation.  In the turns of nature and battles for survival, mountain pine beetles are winning, as yellow fever was winning, and the black death.  In time, these cycles often reverse to where lodgepole pines and humans sometimes move ahead.

Meanwhile the fading grasses come and go on schedule.  Here today, gone tomorrow, say the grasses, without regret.  Lodgepoles could learn from them:  Why should a lodgepole live forever?  Of course, humans are above all that. 

Osprey used to breed in the tops of big lodgpole pines, building their huge nests on strong upper limbs or broken tops.  But since the big old lodgepoles died, and the young trees are too small for osprey nests, the birds had to relocate.  That was until someone climbed this tree, cut the top and placed a flat nesting platform.  Ospreys have made it home and nest here May through September.