Every evening they gather in the nearby cottonwood trees in large flocks before flying up to Miranda Canyon to roost for the night. I call this the “magpie train,” although it might more aptly be called a river of birds. I don’t know where they go, exactly, up in the canyon, or why. It has to be colder up there, except perhaps near the old hot springs—warm springs, actually, almost tepid, but never frozen. I’d have to be waiting until well after dark to learn if that’s where they go, then hike back somehow with a flashlight.
There’s nothing the least bit enticing about being back in the hills after dark, of course. Beyond the canyon, there’s only mountains and forest for miles upon miles. Dirt roads, a few mountain villages, settlements strung along the valleys and such. Mainly one lonely two-lane, folks living lives most of us don’t see. But mostly just Nature, with all that implies.
And somewhere the magpies, asleep in the trees.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
Where we live it’s Ravens leaving every evening for Taos Canyon. Somehow I love it that I don’t know just where they go. Nature should have some intact mysteries. Oh yes, we get magpies as well, and there is something satisfying about these birds living among us, raiding the trash bins of fast food restaurants, stealing the dog’s food left outside and then leaving to the mystery of their own world.
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