The story of millions of years part 10


LATE CRETACEOUS

North America….. 76 million years ago

In the fierce midday heat the ground shimmered, the very air rippling with false promise; the nesting grounds reflected in the sky.

Nothing moved that didn’t need to move, the air as still as the grey fallen trees piled along the river bank and scattered across the stream; the last thin ribbon of silver water stretched to breaking between the far-off hills and the distant sea.

It was a lifeline to which life still clung; a thread of hope meandering its uncertain way through a valley of its own making, log-strewn and parched, waiting for the autumn rains.

On higher ground, the maiasaurs nested, good mothers sitting mute on their rotting piles; sheltering eggs from the impossible heat, battling the sun as they battled everything else in this harsh land, each and every day a challenge to be overcome.

And not all of them had made it, the mummified husks of the weak and weary, the old and infected, gathering dust between the mounds.

Nothing moved save the shimmering heat, the maiasaurs closed-eyed and immobile, waiting for the first evening breeze to touch their skin.

It was a time for silence; the jostling and rubbing saved for later in the day, the time when social interactions could be re-forged.

Nothing moved, save one slim foot, a graceful grey limb lifted and held, waiting to be placed with care, down it came, slowly, the narrow-clawed digits separating on the hot, dry ground. So as one foot descended another lifted, the daring hunter entering carefully the giants’ land.

Between the nests it stepped, weaving a course around the slumbering queens; each of the immobile creatures outweighing it several thousand times.

A killer it was, but a killer of the young, its beak of needle-sharp teeth held low, its eyes as black as the deepest shadow reflecting all it saw.

The sun beat down upon it, inky feathers absorbing heat. A patient killer cloaked in a mantle of night, an infant stalker, its dagger-like head moving purposefully from side to side.

Closed eyes opened, conscious of its passing; an aggravation but not a threat, not to the overheated adults suffering upon their nests.

Troodon could pass while the day was hot; while the effort to send it fleeing was like battling flies, the small creatures an ever-present irritation in the mothers’ lives.

The hunter stalked, navigating the predictable valleys between the nests; each a chasm a tail-length wide. It had a job to do and dimly the Maiasaura knew it, tolerant of the opportunistic killer welcome to scavenge the nesting ground.

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