Subject: Cuckoo for falcon ops
Date: Aug 17 14:55:16 2004
From: Connie Sidles - csidles at isomedia.com


Hey tweets, Well, dear tweets, I must report that I have gone around the
bend. Something about sailing to Siberia seems to have knocked a screw
permanently loose, although many would say the screw was already wobbling
pretty strongly before, and they always expected me to go off the rails some
day. That day arrived and it was August 16. In other words, I been and gone
to Martha's Vineyard to see the red-footed falcon.

It's really all Nick and Sally's fault. Nick and Sally are two Connecticut
friends I met on the Siberia trip, and they egged me on, perching like two
little satans on my shoulders as they recited all the reasons why my work
could wait but the falcon could not. Well, I have to admit that I was
reciting my own reasons, but they started it. It all began when, in
pie-in-the-sky fashion, I wrote an email to Sally wistfully saying how much
I would like to see that falcon and would they consider driving out to
Martha's Vineyard with me, if I could get to Boston. Strictly dreaming, you
understand. Well, Sally called my bluff and said they'd both already seen
the falcon but would love to meet me in Providence and drive down again for
another view; when was my plane arriving?

I dithered for 2 hours. Should I go? That would be crazy. But life is short.
Yeah, but the house needs a new roof, you have a deadline to meet, the apple
tree is dropping apples that need to be picked up or else we'll all suffer a
fruit-fly population explosion of biblical proportions, you have no clean
clothes, and when was the last time you vacuumed? Okay, the last time I
vacuumed was roughly when I still thought John Edwards had a chance to win
the Democratic nomination, which was pretty good because the last time I
*wanted* to vacuum was when John Kennedy asked me what I could do for my
country. I called up the airlines and was at the airport four hours later.

Nick and Sally picked me up in Providence at 5:30 a.m. the next day and by
9:00 we were on the bird. Oh, what a sight.

We had arrived off the passenger ferry in time to jam ourselves into a cab
(7 to a cab and $2 apiece). We bounced along through the narrow streets of
Edgartown and out to the airfield. When the cab stopped and we had exploded
out the doors like we were shooting out of a clown car, we could see 300
birders staring through probably $1 million of optics at a lone falcon
hovering high overhead. The bird flew down to nab a bug, then perched on one
of the many airport traffic control signs out in the grassy field. Heat
waves were already shimmering, but somehow not around the bird itself, who
was framed by them in Hollywood-movie fashion.

The falcon began to preen, lifting one red-orange foot to scratch an ear,
then spreading out its barred tail so we could all see that it had a heavy
stripe of black running up the center. It sprang back into the air to hunt
again, with pointed wings fanning out like an angel. Every time it stopped
to hover, it would lower its little red feet. When it flew high enough, the
hordes of hawking swallows would dive-bomb it but not seriously. I think the
swallows were too intent on fattening up for the long migration that lay
ahead - who had time to bother with a falcon? Whenever the falcon came back
down to perch, we got a chance to study its dark eyes circled with yellow,
its dove-gray back tinged with hints of brown, its slight falcon-mask.

At one point, the falcon decided to check out all the people who kept
staring at it, so it soared over our heads and looked right into my eyes.

Wild things, I find, do not look at us with any expression that I can
identify. I first discovered this many years ago when I looked into the eyes
of a young tiger that had been let out of its cage at Brookfield Zoo. The
tiger, and this falcon too, looked right through me without acknowledging my
existence in any way, and yet I know that both creatures saw me. Saw me but
didn't discern me, refused to perceive me. Their look was almost insane, if
we define sanity by our need to acknowledge each other, to see into each
other's souls when our eyes meet.

Neither the tiger nor the falcon would let me see into their souls, if souls
they have. I think they do. At least, I believe they have animating spirits.
But those spirits are of such breathtaking wildness that we cannot
comprehend. We can only lower our eyes in tribute to the pure essence of
wild nature.

Now that I'm sitting here back in my messy office, it all seems like a fairy
tale, the kind of memory that my aging brain tends to manufacture these
days. You know what I mean - you describe some vivid memory or other, and
your family says, "Huh? That never happened," and you realize your brain has
tricked you again. Still, I have the ticket stubs to prove it really was
true. I plan to hang onto both them and to my memory of one perfect morning
when a falcon from Africa pierced my heart. - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com