There was water, but the grasses that never recovered this year looked even drier in sharp contrast to the greens. Drought isn’t just about rain or no rain — it grinds through the gears of an entire system. Every cog in the machinery of farming and water use is strained by scarcity.

The trail cam did not disappoint—our new pencil neck blue jays are in that brief, awkward stage of learning to feed themselves, all elbows and attitude, and so funny to watch. Just like last year’s gang, they make us laugh while they grow, still part of our family, still pencil necks.

We welcomed the fall-like weather for that last week of August, when cooler temperatures still reached into the 80s. There was fog and those random short heavy rains. I saw special moments with fog, and learned to appreciate them in a new way. More unsettled days would be ahead.

“Do not squander time; it is the stuff life is made of. Yet remember—life is not measured by what you do in a day, but by how gently you hold the hours you’re given.” -Ben Franklin

So many adventures filled the years, and your 80th birthday came and went in a flash. You averaged over 6,000 steps a day, perfected Sous Vide bison every Sunday for nine months, and out of the blue, found your mojo again for panini sandwiches.

Who knew that adding a three-foot extension cable to a hub on my laptop would cause so much frustration, and the job would need Power Shell fixes. But as with each and every setback, the solution put me way ahead of just stopping a misbehavior. Now I had icons on my taskbar.

The haze made scenic photos less interesting than on other days, but I felt very lucky to spot male and female night herons out of the corner of my eye looking back at the little lake when we were ready to move on. It seemed a day for portraits. I couldn't print all of the excellent ones.

Yes, and did you know pine trees and sunflowers are like that, too?

On Tuesday, quite a few blackbirds gathered at the canal, along with swallows swooping over the water to catch insects. In the bulrushes, I noticed one curious spot — maybe a nest, or perhaps just a favorite lookout for the blackbirds.

Along a mile of Monte Vista’s bulrushes, blackbirds packed so tightly the count could have been a million. Both red-wings and yellow-heads staged together for migration, a rare sight few visitors ever see. That morning seemed to mark the beginning of their departure.

A skunk had stopped by a few times before, but this time he stayed a while and came back three times. He drank the water and found some food. He was small for a skunk, about the same size as the fox squirrel. Even six hours later, we could tell he'd been by because of his odor.

Maybe we hadn't seen the Wilson's phalaropes before, because they stayed on the far side of the big lake like the avocets did, but at half the size they were even harder for us to see at that distance. I finally just got lucky and noticed a few closer to our shore. They were new to us.

I thought I’d found three different wetland grasses — green, red, and wheat-gold — but it’s all one plant: phragmites, or common reed grass. The wetlands’ ultimate shape-shifter. They’re the shape-shifters of a marsh, and once you notice them, they pretty much define the habitat.

In August, when there were millions of blackbirds, they seemed to need to claim their spots in the reeds on the far bank. Young yellow-headed blackbirds would often stay when we got too close for their parents, and they were fun to watch. One hanging onto two branches was the cutest.

With so few birds, it was a joy to see a single glossy ibis at the Alamosa refuge. It flew, and I was lucky enough to get a whole series of photos of him. He wasn't especially iridescent, but I didn't mind, just glad he was there. We don't see many of them and I love all of the long-legged birds.

I’d seen a lot of August sunrises, but this one felt different. The orange band was so narrow and bright, with the rest of the sky staying cool and still above it. I was likely because of the smoke from those wildfires in nearly states. I didn’t remember seeing this kind of clean split before.

The wildfire haze that blanketed Monte Vista brought us a week of striking, otherworldly sunrises. Even with the geese flying through clouds lit in vibrant oranges and purples, the beauty is bittersweet. We were aware, each morning, that this light came at a cost. The fires in Arizona and Utah...

I didn’t have much energy, so I sat quietly and watched the blackbirds. Thousands of them, red and yellow all mixed together, but I was waiting for just those three redwings to line up perfectly. While I waited, you spotted the marsh wren—and I loved that I captured him too.

We almost never saw another vehicle on the refuge, except when the sandhill cranes arrived. But on this Monday we did see another vehicle. While I was taking photos of this wonderful little night heron that we always looked for, they drove by and we know they never saw him.

At MVNWR, I gasped and you stopped. Two big buck deer and a doe just past the entrance watched us, and we moved on without disturbing them. A minute later, the great blue heron had to leave as soon as he saw me. It was still fairly dark and he was on the other side of the lake.