The Prairie Falcons of Texas Avenue

Grand Junction, Colorado

            A pair of prairie falcons have nested in the massive cottonwood across the street, and I find them fascinating as they dart from tree to tree, perch on the backyard fence, or land in the street to drink from an ephemeral pond created by a neighbor watering his yard.

            A sandy, speckled raptor a bit larger than a raven, the prairie falcon has a powerful body, tapered wings, and a narrow tail that spreads in flight. Adapted to desert life, it feeds primarily on small mammals like mice and voles. The prairie falcon’s cruising speed nears 50 miles per hour, but in a dive they can reach 100 miles per hour, a truly amazing speed. When they call out, they make a high-pitched piping sound similar to an osprey’s cry. Sometimes the notes are clear, and sometimes they have a rasping undertone.

The female, the larger member of the species, tends to stay near the nest, while the male will range across the nearby territory in order to take an intruder, most likely an owl or hawk, by surprise. So, the falcon that perches on our house’s roof ridge or in our mulberry tree is usually the male.

One evening, the male settled into the Siberian elm across the alley from my backyard. Reclining in my lawn chair, I studied it as it preened its tailfeathers and stretched its wings, preparing to bed down for the evening. Even after the sun was gone, I could still see it silhouetted against the dusk’s western glow. Nearby, the crescent moon emerged in the darkening sky. It was in conjunction with Venus, the brightest planet, symbol of the Meso-American deity Quetzalcoatl, and they all created a line of sacred objects – moon, Venus, and falcon – sentinels in the growing night.

It was a moment of great magic and beauty – the wilderness gracing the city with its holy presence.

The Mine Claim

Nelson, Nevada

Well, it’s snowing here today in Grand Junction – an early March snow with big wet flakes and a low, heavy grey sky – and it brought to mind a time a year ago when I went hiking during a rare snowfall in the volcanic hills near Nelson, a small mining town south of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Since most of its mines shut down nearly 70 years ago, Nelson, unlike its big city neighbor to the north, is a pretty quiet place. However, in the 19^th century, Nelson was a boom town with a violent reputation, including frequent killings over claim disputes, numerous skirmishes with bandits, and even the occasional Indian raid. Indeed, Nelson’s fame for lawlessness drew deserters during the Civil War because AWOL soldiers from both sides knew the law would never track them down in Nelson. Still, despite this near-anarchy, Nelson produced millions of dollars in gold, silver, copper, and lead.

          

As I said, on the day I was hiking, it was cold and wet, quite unusual weather for the Mojave Desert’s southeastern edge. The sky was totally overcast. Low clouds brushed the tops of the surreal stone bluffs, releasing a spray of rain, sleet, and snow. A narrow stream flowed through the wash I was traversing, and at one point, the watercourse dropped through a series of steep boulders and cliffs, forming diminutive waterfalls and the sound of water descending through stones and sand – a Mojave Desert rarity.

I walked along in near-silence. My sodden boot-steps made muffled noises in the wet sand. Occasionally, a jackrabbit would dash out from under a salt brush, producing a whispering, scrambling sound and the clatter of a kicked stone. At one point, I thought I heard distant voices, but when I stopped, the words resolved into the cold wind meandering through the stunted shadscale and greasewood.

Soon after I heard these illusory voices, there were real gunshots, somewhere behind me, towards the highway. While I realized it was probably someone target practicing, the pistol cracks did give me an uneasy feeling.

Then, I turned a sharp bend in the wash, through a narrow gap between a pair of stone mounds seemingly formed from melting wax the color of old ashes. And there it was – an object I’ve not often encountered in the desert. It was a tall wood stake driven into the sandy earth and propped up with piles of soot colored stones. At the top of the stake, an aluminum plate bore these words: SILVER PRIESTESS CLAIM – SW CORNER.

I had wandered into a silver mine claim.

Encountering that claim marker, I felt like I had dropped back in time to Nelson’s boom days when its gold and silver strikes, some of the richest in Nevada, pulled in adventurers, scoundrels, and thieves – all trying to make their fortune from the volcanic earth’s bounty. The phantom voices and the remote gunfire only added to the illusion of having entered a different century.

It was a magical feeling, one that made my sojourn into the cold, rainy desert well worth the venture.

[Note: the name of the mine claim has been changed to help obscure its location.]