Colorado Wildlife
One of the really fun things about our trip to Colorado was the ability to see some wildlife especially animals that we had not seen anywhere than a zoo before. We definitely had some favorites like the prairie dogs at the Arsenal Wildlife refuge in Denver (which we visited on our way from Colorado Springs to the Rocky Mountains). This refuge is located 10 minutes from downtown Denver and the animals roam free in their natural habitat. It is about a 45 min to an hour slow drive through the refuge and we listened to the self guided tour to learn more about each section as we drove.
Wildlife Refuge Favorites
The prairie dogs were so cute and were in abundance. You could see their dirt mounds and how well they blended in with them! The buffalo actually walked past our car (behind us) and was the closest we saw, but there were also large groups of them later in the drive. We only saw the one coyote but we were there in the middle of the day.
Marmots and Goat
On our way up Pike’s peak, we saw many marmots and as I showed in my post about Pikes Peak, one came really close. Mostly though, we saw them from our car in the rocks on our way up. We saw the one wild goat which did come closer to the visitor’s building at the summit. We loved the marmots!
Moose and Elk
We saw quite a few mule deer on our trip with the majority of them in the Rocky Mountains National park. We learned how to tell apart moose and elk in the distance by the white tails (elk). We did see an elk close up on our Bear Lake hike. I will leave you with a video I took on the way back through the park of a moose and her baby in the river. We saw that everyone had stopped, so of course, we stopped too to see what everyone was looking at!
A bientôt!
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14 Comments
Joanne
I am so so jealous you saw a moose! It’s one of the animals I’ve most wanted to see and though we see signs galore for them all over Maine I’ve never seen one. Prarie dogs were huge favorites of our on our South Dakota trip. They were so cute and with our windows down we could hear all their little noises. The marmots are really cute too.
mimifce
Yes, the prairie dogs were noisy!
jodie
We used to have prairie dogs behind our house in Denver…I thought they were so cute, but Rob was not a fan.
But they are very community oriented. When they got hit in the street, there would be another by his side mourning for him.
XOOX
Jodie
mimifce
Wow, that is interesting!
Jennifer
This is absolutely amazing!
Jennifer
https://curatedbyjennifer.com
mimifce
One of our favorite parts of the trip!
Shelbee on the Edge
Oh my gosh, the moose mama and her baby! What a cool thing to see. I love seeing animals in their natural habitats. Zoos always make me feel a little bit sad for them. But I do love a nice slow drive through a wildlife refuge. The Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge is not too far from us and we visited it a few years ago. It’s mostly waterfowl and migratory birds there but still so cool to see them. I was in Colordao many years ago and I do remember seeing praire dogs and goats just driving around with my friends. This looks like a fabulous family trip!
Shelbee
mimifce
Yes! It’s always exciting to see the animals in their own environment and still at a safe distance.
Cat
Great pictures!
I love prairie dogs (and even had one for a while). The cats were not sure about him when he was running around, but Mim wasn’t impressed even if Fips stood up straight and whistled at her.
mimifce
That’s wild! I can just imagine!
Sally in St Paul
Though they aren’t the mightiest animals of your trip, I just love seeing marmots! So cute. The mama moose with baby moose video was a great sighting!
mimifce
The marmots were so funny! And the moose pretty imposing!
Mami Made It
It’s incredible what you all got to see! The marmot looks so cute, and seeing a mother moose with her baby moose right next to the road was amazing. It’s wonderful that the animals feel so safe in the nature reserve that they can come so close to cars, roads, and people.
mimifce
Yes! And hopefully, everyone drives slowly on the parkway.