Denver's record-setting heat wave has altered the pattern Sage and I have for our daily High Line Canal trail walks. Indeed, it has kept us from walking the trail many days. But not today. Determined to "go see" what's going on, Sage and I left the house at, for us, the unheard hour of 6:45 in the morning. My neighbors marveled and asked, teasingly, if I felt okay! It was so deliciously cool that I had goose bumps. Lovely feeling and, I know, fleeting.

The trail was fairly busy with walkers and bikers. I stopped to chat with neighbor Val on the trail who told me that two families of hawks live near where I saw the hawk a couple weeks ago. She thought they were Swainson's hawks. A birder friend suggested that the one I saw might be a Cooper's hawk. Either way, beautiful birds. I did see the silhouette of a hawk perched on a fence post on the other side of the canal, but it flew away fairly quickly. Perhaps breakfast came by?

My lucky viewing today was a spectacular dragonfly that clung, unmoving, to a grass stalk. I suspect it was waiting for the sun to warm its wings. I love to watch the aerial acrobatics of brightly colored dragonflies. They are among the fastest insect fliers and have apparently been clocked by someone at speeds as high as 30 miles per hour. They catch insects in their fierce jaws (that's why they're called dragonflies) and in their front legs, which act as baskets to scoop up midges, mosquitoes, even butterflies and other large insects. This dragonfly is a whitetail according to a photo in my Colorado insect guidebook. While I usually see dragonflies near water, they apparently will fly over meadows and fields as well. There certainly isn't water in the canal to attract them. The whitetail was still on the stalk when Sage and I headed back towards home 20 minutes later.