Birds of a Feather
COLORADO WOLF STORIES VIII
Note: This continuing story is a work of informed speculation. It tells the imagined experience of a family of gray wolves who represent the 10 actual wolves captured in Oregon and released in Colorado in December 2023 as directed by a state voter initiative.
Perched high in a grey snag at the edge of an alpine pond, a red-tailed hawk watches three young wolves playing in the meadow below. Little Wolf and his sisters are chasing each other, leaping and racing through the grass. The pups are now old enough and big enough to be on their own this morning while the adults are on the hunt.
The hawk is on the hunt as well, patiently waiting for the energetic adolescents to scare up a meal. Just then it happens—a mouse runs out from under a log that the pups have disturbed, and it scurries along the muddy shoreline of the pond. The red-tail launches from her branch in the dead tree, swoops down and snatches up the rodent in a swift and seamless arc of deadly grace.
Little Wolf is distracted from his chasing game by the sight of the diving raptor. He slows, pauses, and is immediately clobbered by his big sister with the amber eyes. She pins him on his back and stands over him in triumph with a delighted canine smile. He wrangles with her for a moment, then wags his tail in submission.
Lesson learned. Little Wolf’s female siblings are both his role models and his greatest supporters, and he has been growing not only in size but in confidence. Once, the most timid of his littermates, the most likely to shy from uncertainty, he is finding his footing as a contributing member of the pack, and no one is more pleased than his sisters.
At almost five months old, the three pups are now at a stage where they spend much of their time at this rendezvous site, an open meadow not far from their den where they can play while the adults are hunting. When the big gray male, the coal-black female, and her black-coated brother return, they will all reunite here.
At the moment, however, Big Gray is several miles away, crouching in the shadows under a thick stand of subalpine fir, watching a small herd of elk cows and calves grazing in the narrow valley above him. Though he remains aware of the hip wound he received where he was recently gored by a bull elk, the pain is no distraction to the task ahead. The wolf family learned a lot about risk vs. reward from that failed hunting experience, and the prospects for reward today are much better.
Black Wolf is also watching in concealment nearby. Mother Wolf, meanwhile, is on the move, circling around to the other side of the drainage, keeping close to the thick willows that line the boggy creek.
The wind shifts, carrying her scent to the grazing herd, and the elk are suddenly aware that danger is near. Their heads raise and turn as one toward the willows where the coal-black female is hidden.
The time for stealth is over, and Mother Wolf executes her plan. She explodes out of her leafy cover, running hard at the herd. The elk pivot in panic, wild-eyed, bolting in the opposite direction down the narrowing valley. It is the only apparent route of escape, and it leads directly toward the two big male wolves positioned to intercept them.
Back at the rendezvous, the three pups are taking a break from their exhausting play. Each is stretched out and sleeping amid the sunny grass and wildflowers. Inevitably, they are dreaming of the chase, their legs twitching in unconscious pursuit.
Little Wolf dreams he is chasing after a rabbit. It races through a shadowy forest, darting left and right and left again, staying just out of reach. Abruptly, a noisy flock of dream geese descends directly in Little Wolf’s path, flapping their huge wings and honking loudly, snapping at his face with their terrifying black beaks.
Little Wolf jerks and wakens in disoriented relief. He raises his head, looks around, and slowly comprehends an unexpected scene: floating serenely on the pond in front of him is a flock of Canada geese, which arrived while the young wolves slept.
Leaping to his feet, Little Wolf runs to the pond’s edge and starts growling at the big birds in his squeaky adolescent wolf voice. The geese are unfazed by the display, calmly paddling toward the other side of the pond. Now the sisters have awakened as well, and they run down to the water’s edge, whining at these audacious birds in solidarity with their brother.
The wolves splash in the shallows but are reluctant to get in deeper. Amber-Eyes suddenly leads the three on a charge along the shoreline to the other side where she hopes to more easily reach the geese, but the big birds simply paddle back across the pond, keeping their distance. The pups see they have been outsmarted, so they race back to where they were before, only to find the geese have returned to the far side.
And the pattern repeats. The geese squawk in annoyance, but they continue to keep well out of the young wolves’ reach, no matter where the frustrated canines run to. It appears this is yet another game that the pups have discovered, but so far, the geese hold all the cards.
Little Wolf, however, has an ace up his sleeve—the wisdom of the pack predator.
The red-tailed hawk has returned to her perch in the snag and is observing the activities below. She has seen the wolves repeatedly running around the pond and the geese calmly readjusting their position each time in response.
But now she sees Little Wolf put a new strategy into action. He unleashes a high-pitched howl to his sisters, and they again rush along the shoreline to the other side of the pond—though this time he stays behind. The geese respond by again paddling away from the running wolves, but then are surprised to find they are uncomfortably close to another wolf who is not where he should be.
Now the Canadas begin honking in alarm. When Amber-Eyes leaps into the water and starts swimming toward them, they’ve finally had enough. The geese turn from her and start flapping their great wings, heaving out of the water and into the air, skimming just above the surface and moving fast.
Right to where Little Wolf is waiting.
The three adult gray wolves are descending the mountainside, returning to the rendezvous, their bellies filled with fresh elk calf meat. Mother Wolf feels the contentment that comes only when she knows her whole family will eat well today. The ravenous pups will not be disappointed.
As they step through an opening in the forest above the pond, Big Gray notes a red-tailed hawk, preening, high in a tree overlooking the scene below, and it is that unexpected scene which brings him, Mother Wolf, and Black Wolf to a halt in their tracks.
Instead of three hungry juveniles, rushing at them eager for a meal, the adults find that Little Wolf and his sisters are already feeding contentedly, each of them reclining amid the green grass and colorful wildflowers—and a generous scattering of Canada geese feathers.
It's so much fun "watching" the little wolves grow.
So much fun to follow the journey - and after reading through once, to read again aloud to my sweetie.