AN UNANNOUNCED FLAG POLE SITTER VISITS THE PARK.
by
R. A. Devlin.

Park rangers are stationed at the camp fire exercises held nightly at the community center near the flag pole to see that lecturers and visitors are not annoyed or distracted by disturbances in or near the camp fire circle. These rangers were quite powerless the other evening to prevent a most unusual and fascinating interruption to Park Naturalist Franke's talk. All present were startled, while the lecturer was in the midst of his talk, by some unknown force from above that seemed to have taken hold of the tubular flag pole and was violently shaking it amid a loud whirring noise, not unlike an aeroplane in motion. It was only after the rangers had piled sufficient wood upon the camp fire that those in attendance could see what the commotion was all about. It proved to be a large bird which was frantically endeavoring to come to rest on top of the brass ball surmounting the 100 foot flag pole. As near as could be determined, the bird was a large heron or crane, a type entirely foreign to this semi-arid region, as the Mesa Verde is devoid of running streams or bodies of water.

The logical explanation for the presence of this unusual bird is that it made the mistake of other water fowl in believing that the two one-acre rain catchment surfaces built of galvanized iron sheets, just north of headquarters, were inviting lakes of water. Seen from a distance on the park road as one makes the descent from the north rim of the park into camp, the bright catchments have all the appearance of separate bodies of water, and this illusion must be even more pronounced when viewed by birds from directly above, judging from the number who have come to grief on these metal surfaces. No doubt the bird in the present instance had alighted onto one of those structures, and finding its mistake, was on its way to more hospitable regions, when it decided upon flag pole-sitting for the night.

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