Maybe you’ve heard: Colorado is on fire. I’m fortunate to not be directly impacted by any of the fires currently burning here in the Centennial state, beyond a lot of smoke in the air. The haze comes and goes, depending on the wind.
Helicopters and World War II-era air tankers continually fly overhead as they make their way back and forth from the regional airport nearby.
The little bit of much-needed rain we’ve gotten this week has also brought lightning, resulting in some smaller wildfires closer to home. I took this picture Wednesday afternoon from one of my favorite local vantage points. You can see some of the flames leaping from the trees and the helicopters loaded with flame retardant to combat them.
We’re lucky – this fire is relatively tiny and the firefighters seem to have the upper hand. The same cannot be said of our friends to north of us near Fort Collins and south of us near Colorado Springs. My heart goes out to everyone affected.
The next morning, they had flown the nest. One we never saw again. But the other one we found in a window well, pecking at one of our basement windows.
He spent the morning testing out his wings, trying to get out of the window well. Later I decided to bring him some water, in case he was thirsty. But I found he’d made his way out and was resting atop our air conditioner next to the window.
He let me get pretty close to him, like he knew me. After all, we’d been watching him ever since he hatched from that little blue egg. So I ran back inside to get the camera and got a few more shots of him.
As soon as I snapped these shots, he flew away. I hope he comes back next spring to start his own family on our light fixture.
