Earlier this week, a spring snowstorm expected to arrive on the following day, I opted for a drive into the mountains west of Denver. With no particular destination in mind, I ended up at Geneva Park, a subalpine parkland between the Mt Evans Massif and the Continental Divide.
Parking along a graveled road, I got out of my pickup to enjoy the magnificent scenery, the cool, fresh air and the sights and sounds of the high country. Puffy clouds raced eastward against a clear, blue sky and faint showers of snow, blowing down from the Divide, swirled across the meadow. Except for wind in the trees, an occasional jet drifting toward DIA and the distant calls of ravens, all was quiet in that remote valley. Scanning the willows and forest edge with my binoculars, I soon discovered a northern shrike, perched atop a barren aspen tree. Though surely an illusion, we seemed to be the only creatures within that vast mountain landscape.
Visiting balmy Colorado for the winter, he would soon return to his breeding grounds in the open taiga of northern Canada or Alaska. On that early spring afternoon, the shrike was likely scanning the grassland for a small rodent or songbird to fuel his coming migration; despite his serene manner and beautiful, clean-edged plumage, this "butcher bird" would eventually find a victim, drop from his perch, crush its neck with his thick, hooked bill and impale its carcass on a thorn, sharp twig or wire fence for later consumption. Before such violence was unleashed by may sole companion, I had to depart that tranquil parkland; my dinner was waiting at Panera.
