The Art of Exploration

Steep Trail

Laura K — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 01:33:05 GMT

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I sat beside the lake  
and noticed  
the natter of juncos  
the lap of water  
	the brush of pine needles.  
   
I walked between the trees  
and inhaled  
the evergreen air  
the ash from afar  
	the mountain breeze.  
   
I climbed the steep trail  
and admired  
the quiet peace  
the twisted roots  
the mosses and  
	liverworts.  
   
I think back through the years and  
imagine those before me  
who sat beside the lake, and  
walked between the trees, and  
	climbed the same steep trail.  
  
I marvel at the changes and  
the fine grains of sifting sands,  
the moments that arise,
quickly, only to perish
	once again.

The Sora

Laura K — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 16:06:00 GMT

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I saw a Sora stepping through the grass  
seeming somewhat tipsy,  
  and tripping over twigs.  
  
Toes tangled in the reeds,  
head nodding with each stride,  
  forward, backward, side-to-side.  
…

Wapiti

Laura K — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 16:16:00 GMT

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On the edge of winter at the drop of dusk,
Wapiti bows his head, his antlers catch the wind.
Like scaffolds made of bone, they steady his stance
     against the graupel gust.
  
Wapiti finds refuge …

Lakeside Evening

Laura K — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 23:20:00 GMT

A late summer stillness settles in at Brainard Lake. The cool evening air pours into the valley. Everyone moves slowly, without urgency. There is a kindness that permeates the air. Smiles on faces, soft conversations, laughter. For the past few days, a parched static has pervaded the air—and with it a desperation for rain. Smoke from fires on the Western Slope seeped over the Divide on the highest wind currents and stained the clouds like spilt tea. But today the winds shifted, the skies cleared.

Families relax on the shore. They sit in camp chairs, share dinners from coolers, eat sandwiches and salads piled high on paper plates. Children in plump life jackets steer paddle boards in wide circles in the shallow water. Small flocks of juncos tumble from one bush to the next, chasing each other and chattering softly. Chipmunks inspect the perimeter for dropped goods: potato chips, bits of bread, clusters of sweet granola.

Brainard Lake was once home to the Ute and Arapaho Native American tribes. Later settled by Europeans in the late 1800s. With them came logging, mining, ranching. The area was part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s brought the Civilian Conservation Corps to the area. They built recreational facilities, trails, picnic areas, campgrounds.

A Prairie Inventory

Laura K — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 05:13:00 GMT

The midwestern summer air is muggy and sweltry. There’s a sense that everything on the prairie stings, bites, cuts, begets rash. Hikers flinch and swat at real and imagined attackers alike: mosquitos…

The Cranes of the San Luis Valley

Laura K — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 18:40:00 GMT

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins as in art with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. The quality of cranes lies,…

Roadside Geology

Laura K — Sun, 11 Jun 2023 22:55:00 GMT

Clouds over the hogback near Livermore, Colorado

It’s early Sunday morning, and I’m driving north along US Highway 287. It’s been raining almost every day for three weeks now, and the landscape’s ragi…

Alluvial Fan

Laura K — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 21:32:00 GMT

Notes from an hour spent observing nature at Alluvial Fan Trailhead, Endovalley, Rocky Mountain National Park.

8:03 a.m. Sheltering in my car. A heavy rain teems down. My mountain-girl grit eludes me.…

A Visit to Chatfield Banding Station

Laura K — Mon, 29 May 2023 22:44:29 GMT

Bullock’s Oriole (Icterus bullockii)

I arrive at the Denver Audubon Nature Center in Chatfield State Park shortly after dawn and join a small group of birdwatchers gathering at the entrance. We're her…

Elk Rut

Laura K — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 18:38:00 GMT

Listen to the haunting bugle calls of bull elk in the alpine meadows and valleys along the Big Thompson River.

A compilation of short recordings made in Rocky Mountain National Park at dusk on Octob…

Christmas at Saint Fagans

Laura K — Sun, 25 Dec 2022 19:07:12 GMT

A Very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

I usually spend Christmas in Wales, but for several years, that’s not been possible. So this year, I decided to create my own Welsh Christmas che…

Steady Rain

Laura K — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 15:12:39 GMT

Experience the soothing sounds of a steady midwestern rain shower as it falls on a bed of coneflowers and sunflowers.

Recorded on the afternoon of September 11, 2022, in northern Illinois. Elevation …

A Pocketful of Species

Laura K — Sat, 24 Sep 2022 17:12:14 GMT

A Snakeweed Grasshopper perched atop a Curlycup Gumweed blossom.

Last summer, I started using iNaturalist to keep track of the species I encountered during my outdoor adventures, and this practice has…

Campsite Vibes

Laura K — Sat, 17 Sep 2022 02:56:02 GMT

Listen to the lazy late-summer whirs of grasshoppers as they rattle through the air at my campsite at the base of Beaver Mountain.

Recorded in the late afternoon of August 30, 2022, at Moraine Park Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park. Elevation 8,180 feet.

MORAINE PARK, COLORADO - I recently spent a few days camping at Moraine Park Campground in the heart of Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s been two years since I last camped in the mountains, and I was thrilled to get back into the wilderness again, even if only for a few nights.

My campsite sat at the far edge of the campground near Beaver Mountain. It was a terrific site, with a small ridge of rocks that sheltered my tent. At dawn, I climbed the ridge to watch the first hints of sunshine wash over Gabletop Mountain and flood Fern Canyon.

The mornings were comfortably cool. I spent them hiking, taking photographs, and chatting with my campsite neighbors. The afternoons were ferociously hot, so that’s when I retreated to the shade of a ponderosa pine to relax and read a book.

My Sony PCM D100 and Clippy EM272 stereo microphones, which I positioned at the edge of my campsite to capture the fluttering of grasshoppers.

During these sweltering afternoons, the fluttering wing clicks of grasshoppers filled the air—an iconic summertime vibe that I could not resist recording. This clicking, known as crepitation, is produced during the courtship display when male grasshoppers repeatedly snap their wings taut while flying to create an auditory performance that (hopefully) impresses the females watching on the ground below. I’m not sure which species of grasshoppers I recorded, but I believe it was some kind of Bandwing Grasshopper (Oedipodinae).

Excerpts From an Evening Chorus

Laura K — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 15:01:05 GMT

A marshy meadow along Mitchell Creek near Brainard Lake, Colorado. This is one of the meadows where I recorded birdsong. By the way, there’s a moose in this photo. Can you spot him? Read about my mem…

A New Look for Lake Haiyaha

Laura K — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 07:03:48 GMT

Lake Haiyaha, after the rockfall. The scar from the rockfall is a smooth, light-grey patch of rock at the farthest reaches of the canyon (above and slightly left of center in the image). Photo: Augus…

Mountain Time

Laura K — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 13:22:00 GMT

The view of Fern Canyon and Gabletop Mountain from my campsite. Incidentally, that’s my neighbor’s tent in the foreground, not mine.

Dawn. Cool air from the sparse alpine land above fills the valley.…

Solar Eclipse Flashback

Laura K — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 04:51:00 GMT

The photos I snapped during the solar eclipse might be the technically worst photos I’ve taken in a long time, and yet they capture the moment wonderfully.

On August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the s…

Birdsong Essentials

Laura K — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 17:00:07 GMT

A juvenile bobolink that I photographed while birdwatching at a nature reserve in northern Illinois many years ago.

As a graduate student in the early 1990s, I attended the School of Public and Enviro…

Teatime With a Moose

Laura K — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 00:04:41 GMT

A handsome bull moose enjoys an early evening snack. The subspecies of moose that inhabits the Rocky Mountains is called the Shiras moose, one of four moose subspecies native to North America.

INDIAN …