It was much later, when I studied my photos more closely, that I found the porcupine in a sunrise photo. He was just east of the little lake and the camera overexposed the photo. It was a lucky accident that I caught him out in the open during a sunrise — they’re not usually out so early.

I studied this same kind of hawk moth when it died on our sidewalk, I'd seen the catepillars, and had even taken photos of one sipping nectar from a flower. But it was a new thing for me, to see what first seemed to fly like a hummingbird and look a lot like a giant wasp, in a video.

On Wednesday we saw two avocets on nests and a few others in water. On Thursday we expected to see the nests and they were gone, and only a few avocets at the other end of the island. The cover was completely cleared from the island, and it seemed the birds were no longer safe.

GardePro took an interesting sunrise photo, and you used your V2's in a pinch. The cloudy sunrise was short as the sun climbed right away into clouds. There was no golden hour, just a gray day. There weren't many birds, none of quite a few of the ones we had expected to see.

I got the dashcam wired to the Jeep's 12-volt power and it was doing a great job of paying attention to the big picture. I kept thinking about the cowbirds we saw the day before, and we saw the usual ducks. I hoped to see the new ones that were too far away to identify, on another day.

While I was waiting for the wi-fi signal to my trail camera at 5 am, I watched a very tiny spider on the clematis, but by the time I was finished with the camera app and could take a photo, he was gone. I liked the colors and felt very fortunate to have one of the newest phone cameras out there.

The same spring storm pattern at Monte Vista on Tuesday, but the cloud cover was heavier and it stayed dark a lot longer. We saw hints of sunrise colors and blue sky to the north. After a while it got brighter and the sun did finally light up the snow covered mountains to the west.

The Bobolink — still rare at Alamosa — was there again a month later. Maybe he was a pioneer, trying out new territory as so much of their native habitat disappears. I thought I heard a bittern, but not the frogs that were calling back in May. I heard songbirds, and it was peaceful.

At the start of the Alamosa refuge tour it was lush, but going just a bit farther, the dry brown landscape hadn't changed in a month. We had hope, but the spring rains just couldn't make up for long term dryness, and the drought was reclassified in the "moderate to severe" category.

On Friday going home, we got to see our first sunrise all week, while heading east and straight into it. Then over a few hours we watched the clouds take over and drove the last leg of our trip in rain. We had a long stretch of unsettled spring weather, and we welcomed the moisture.

The newest bunnies would come for breakfast before I finished setting up my camera, and it was exciting to see how they became even less afraid of us than their parents were. I worked out a way to crop my ten-second videos, and edit and sort thousands of photos on my phone.

On Thursday, the last day of our June trip to MVNWR, the clouds to the east were thick again, but through the gray in a few spots sun peeked through. It wasn't much but a close-up image showed how dramatic it was. We had 20 minutes of golden sun before it was cloudy again.

On Wednesday, it was cold with another heavy cloud cover over the sand dunes, which meant low lighting and no sunrise color. Also not many birds, but I was watching a pair of Canada geese with six babies when an otter wanted to be part of my scene. The best photobomb ever.

It rained off and on for days, and there was heavy fog that shut down DIA. We were generous with the treats, knowing we were feeding a lot of baby birds, bunnies and even the squirrels. And on a very wet Saturday we had two new visitors: the Lazuli bunting and the mourning dove.

I was happy to be able to see the marsh wrens so well since my eye surgery. It was well worth all the effort when I was consistently seeing better than you, actually. And when it came to avocets on the distant island and the tiny wrens mixed in with the cattails, it was the best.