Hey tweets, I finally saw the red-shouldered hawk yesterday afternoon.
He was hunched up in tree behind the animal shelter. The most
interesting thing he did during the 20 minutes I watched him was he
stuck out a leg and eyed it. Then he put his leg back and hunched some
more. I remember once spending an entire day watching a gyrfalcon that
Bud Anderson had radio-tagged. We started before dawn and were rewarded
with the falcon flying directly overhead, giving us a look as she
passed by. We all leaped into our cars and tracked her to a fencepost,
where she sat for quite some time. By "quite some time," I mean hours.
Every now and then she would get up in the air and fly to another post.
You might think that a day spent like this would be boring. But what
happened after the first hour or two was that I found myself getting
into the bird's rhythm (if that is the word). I let go of my chimpian
worries about the future, the past, my mortgage, the kids. I lived in
an avian present that I still visit in my mind when I have to. I
couldn't give this hawk enough of my day yesterday to join its world,
but I'm glad I got a few moments to share. - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com