amkhosla
Red-necked Phalarope Hen
Each summer when we return to Koviashuvik, I like to watch the phalaropes.
Phalaropes are small sandpiper-like birds which many people do not know exists. They nest in the tundra at Kovaiashuvik and spin on the surface of the lake.
I watched a pair fly along the shore. Skimming along the shore they turned at a sharp angle and dropped to the glassy surface of the lake, dropped to the glassy surface where sedges grew out into the water. These two small shorebirds probably spent the winter off the coast of Baja, California in Mexico in the company of whales. They had spent the winter in the company of gray whales in the sunshine of Baja before their migration north across open water until they reached the great mud flats where the Yukon river flows into the Bering Sea. There the flock with which they traveled turned inland.
They drifted light as corks on their own reflections. With needle-like bills they jabbed for larvae which rose for air at the surface of the lake.
Then it happened.
It happened when the flat surface of the water between them swirled and bubbled. The surface roiled and the larger of the two phalaropes vanished. The little brown bird vanished as a great northern pike sank slowly beneath the surface with the phalarope hen in its gullet.
Only wide rolling ripples remained on the surface. The ripples flattened out into the lake following the male phalarope's instant flight across the water. Just widening ripples remained.
Where the birds had been feeding, the surface was now quiet. It again mirrored back great piles of white clouds above the surrounding mountains as if nothing had happened. But the world had changed. Yes the world had changed. These northern phalaropes were no longer a pair. They were different and so was I.
From Koviashuvik - Making a home in the Brook's Range by Sam Wright - "A twenty year spiritual journey in America's last wilderness"
Red-necked Phalarope Hen
Each summer when we return to Koviashuvik, I like to watch the phalaropes.
Phalaropes are small sandpiper-like birds which many people do not know exists. They nest in the tundra at Kovaiashuvik and spin on the surface of the lake.
I watched a pair fly along the shore. Skimming along the shore they turned at a sharp angle and dropped to the glassy surface of the lake, dropped to the glassy surface where sedges grew out into the water. These two small shorebirds probably spent the winter off the coast of Baja, California in Mexico in the company of whales. They had spent the winter in the company of gray whales in the sunshine of Baja before their migration north across open water until they reached the great mud flats where the Yukon river flows into the Bering Sea. There the flock with which they traveled turned inland.
They drifted light as corks on their own reflections. With needle-like bills they jabbed for larvae which rose for air at the surface of the lake.
Then it happened.
It happened when the flat surface of the water between them swirled and bubbled. The surface roiled and the larger of the two phalaropes vanished. The little brown bird vanished as a great northern pike sank slowly beneath the surface with the phalarope hen in its gullet.
Only wide rolling ripples remained on the surface. The ripples flattened out into the lake following the male phalarope's instant flight across the water. Just widening ripples remained.
Where the birds had been feeding, the surface was now quiet. It again mirrored back great piles of white clouds above the surrounding mountains as if nothing had happened. But the world had changed. Yes the world had changed. These northern phalaropes were no longer a pair. They were different and so was I.
From Koviashuvik - Making a home in the Brook's Range by Sam Wright - "A twenty year spiritual journey in America's last wilderness"