24 July 2014 Carnage on the tundra.

After climbing Colorado's 14,003 foot tall Mount Huron, I stumbled upon a surprising natural interaction between a Marmot and a songbird known as the Water Pipit. I am going to call it a crime scene, because of the heinous nature of the act that was committed by the marmot, and the extreme distress exhibited by the victim, the mother pipit. I first noticed something going on when I heard the repeated alarm calls of a small tan colored bird, amid a field of beautiful wildflowers. I recognized the bird as a pipit, and knowing that they nest only on the treeless tundra, I was intrigued. I figured that some animal must be threatening the bird's nest, so I watched for a minute. Something was going on here, and I wanted the solve the mystery.

Sure enough, a marmot was eating willows nearby. The pipit began to dive bomb and peck at the head of the marmot, trying to drive it away. It must really be close to the nest I thought. After several minutes of heckling by the pipit, the marmot moved off.

Having spent several unsuccessful days looking for pipit nests as part of the Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas project, I moved in to take a look. What I found surprised me: a half eaten baby pipit! The marmot was a baby killer! The mother pipit was trying desperately to save the other three chicks- still featherless in the nest. I had caught this grizzly marmot in the act of eating babies! Nice cuddly furry marmots-bah! They are cold blooded killers.

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I guess everyone does what it takes to survive the harshness of the tundra. After all, it wasn't far from here that in 1874, Alfred Packer left his own carnage.