July 13, 2013

Blog Stew with Birds and Mulch (Colorado Springs edition)

• Fascinated by birds, a high school student tracks survival in nest boxes after the Black Forest Fire.
Five years ago, Alec entered fourth grade at School in the Woods as "a wilderness kid" and came out a budding ornithologist. The small Academy District 20 school with an environmental science focus introduced him to the world of birds, and he wanted to continue his education.
• The summit of Pike's Peak is crowned by a dreary early-1960s gift shop and snack bar. Colorado Springs is thinking of re-doing it. The article fails to mention another summit fiasco, in the early 1980s, as I recall, when some Oklahoma millionaire gave the city the "gift" of bright lights up there, replacing the solitary light let let Springs residents estimate the height of clouds at night.

Upset that the summit now looked like a K-Mart parking lot (upon which the Oklahomans could gaze from their home in the swanky Kissing Camels subdivision), citizens demanded the lights' removal, and the city acceded.

• Black Forest has not only a "bird boy" but a "mulch lady," according to headline writers at The GazetteOnce again, it is the Question of Biomass:
On a recent evening, more than 345 people arrived with trailers bulging with slash they cleared from their property. It generated about 702 cubic yards of mulch. The Black Forest fire has gotten mitigation procrastinators off their duffs, she says. They are taking in twice the amount of slash and sending out about half as much as usual.

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