The 2006 Blizzard

When you keep a collection of animals that are completely dependent on you for their well-being, then a little snow storm is no excuse to not get to them and make sure they are well, fed as required, and secured for the night.  In the process, you might trudge through a lot of the white stuff,  shovel a lot of it, but when the snow and wind stops, what you get to see is more than worth the effort.  To those of you who have visited our facility on the eastern plains of Colorado, what follows are a few prairie images that are only altered by the effects of wind driven frozen flakes of water.  Merry Christmas!

	After having to walk about 300 yards into our facility, because the main access road was drifted over with snow piled 3 feet high, we were greeted with the following images, and the digging would start.
	Digging our way into the birds we had one four foot drift to open up before we could get the gate open.
	The Colorado Grange building on our grounds looking lonely and cold with drifts all around.
	Anne Price, REF's Curator, shows the scale of the snow drift in front of our office.  The drift towered to about 7 feet at its highest point.
	Looking northeast from our office steps I was half expecting to see a herd of reindeer pulling a sled across the prairie.  It turned out to be another herd.
	Jack rabbits (see below) used the open areas between the buildings and the snow drifts to hang out undisturbed until yours truly startled them. On December 23, after a few days of warming up, I came up over one of the drifts and saw over 50 jacks in the sunny open area between the Grange building and the picnic shelter building.  I was startled by the herd of hares, and of course, I had no camera. I returned to the office for the camera, but by the time I returned the "herd"  had dispersed although some  were still hanging out.  The pictures below are evidence of winter life on the prairie...it can get pretty hairy!
	This beauty walked to within 5 feet of me, as I stood still waiting to see what he would do.  He just kept coming, until I moved, then he jumped away.
	Inside our facility, the walkways were all snowed in.
	After some very energetic digging, we could get to our birds, and feed them before the darkness settled around them with what would be a very cold night.
	Our large owl enclosure with our male great horned owl ready for some warm mice....
	Our large falcon enclosure required some serious shoveling to open up space for our peregrines and the one prairie falcon to have a little more room to move and eat.
	The end of our day: dug out, fed out, and ready to walk out. Just a week later, a second storm engulfed us, followed by a third storm just a week later.  For more images, just click...
Pictures and captions by Peter Reshetniak