Steve and Judy's Travels!

Conner did.

The Manitou Incline outside of Colorado Springs.  The incline was built in the early 1900s, a funicular railway to go up Pikes Peak.  The railway was damaged by a rockslide in 1990 and eventually closed.  Without train cars going up and down it anymore, who could then resist hiking up the roadbed of an incline railway?

It’s not a very long hike, slightly less than a mile, but it gains 2,000 vertical feet in one continuous staircase of 2,768 railroad ties.

A bit of a grind.  How long did it take?  52 minutes.

Just this one great big one left.

Not really a hummingbird, of course.  It’s a hooded oriole.

Orioles are fruit eating birds.  They like the hummingbird sugar water nectar.  When he stands on one side, he can get the reservoir to spill over.

He gets the treat.

He won’t be here much longer either.  Also a migrant, it will be off to Mexico and Central America for him soon.

Can we guess who?

Harris’s Hawk.

Another Southern bird.

Unique in that they hunt in packs like wolves.  Some will land and flush prey for others to pounce on, then they share the meal.

Like the black vulture, a southeastern scavenger, but even more southern.  Southern Arizona, South Texas, and a few in Florida.