The wonderful works of nature I have been able to witness with Greg is a
great miracle; in October 2010 we saw a mountain lion or maybe a cougar,
walking around the cars in a nearby canyon, and the many people around
too; and since then, the many deer, ducks, birds, geese, horses, and sheep we
come across often. Of course, many of these we see daily, but for the
others, these glorious creatures of nature come out of their hiding places and
let themselves be known, or if we have startled them, they let themselves be gone...quickly! The large
herd of deer we scared away not long ago as the last of the 17 hoped over the fence, some
were lazy and crawled under a hole in the fence they created instead of jumping, all while the leader stood watch over us.
For months we have been dazzled by a beautiful hawk; she left for a few but
eventually returned. She had a partner; sadly, we haven't seen him
lately. It was exciting to see them hunt together; once, one stayed in
the nest while the other screeched and flew away, circling the field. I
got excited thinking there were eggs nestled beneath her; I guess there could
still be, but we have only been seeing one hawk for awhile now. We have been wanting
to take binoculars out on our walks to get a better image of this beautiful creature but we
both kept forgetting to grab them before stepping outside for, and
with an excited dog, it’s not worth running back inside making her wait longer.
This beautiful hawk takes flight, screeching loudly while stretching her
large wings up and out, circling the fields, letting the air carry her
effortless glide. She flies high, glides low; again she flies higher and
glides lower. It is always a beautiful dance of the hawk, the wind, and
the field creatures catching her eye.
A couple days ago we witnessed a swallow chasing the hawk, diving at it and
sometimes making contact with her. The hawk didn’t
seem to be worried though, gliding to the left then to the right, flying a bit
higher then quickly lowering, trying to shake this swallow off. Then the swallow came diving down and got her, but then the hawk effortlessly went into a double barrel roll missing the swallow’s
next move. To see this was pure delight,
I wanted the hawk to roll again! The
swallow eventually flew away and left the hawk alone. We both verbalized how cool it would have
been to see this through the binoculars, yet missing an up close hawk
moment.
Today's miracle was witnessing nature of what I have only seen on Animal
Planet or PBS or the sort. The three of us are walking, Greg and I talking when
I glance up and look to the left in the large field, I see a significant something
in the field, its struggling, and its flapping and rolling over to the right then
over again to the left, thrashing the huge wings. The many magpies
quickly landing around this commotion, flying up off the ground in
one quick second just to land close again, this dance continues. All I could do at this moment was nudging
Greg and pointing toward this odd ruckus, this excitement. He asked, “Baby, what is it? What do you see?” Then his eyes caught the same vision I was
seeing. “What the hell is that?” we ask
each other. “Oh wait, here, I brought
the binoculars!” Greg takes the
binoculars and kept saying, “Wow!” I
ask him if it’s the hawk and if she’s okay, he replies “Yes it is, she’s fine,
but she has something…something big!” I
jokingly ask, “A cat, a dog?” He replies, “No, bigger!” What the hell is bigger than a dog or cat
around here?
I get the binoculars, it takes me a
little longer to find the hawk and the herd of magpies (this is a constant
problem with me and binoculars) , after finding the tops of trees, roof tops,
house windows, the water at our feet then…yes, there they are! “Oh my
god, it’s a goose!” The hawk caught a beautiful
Canadian goose. There is a gaggle of
these Canadian geese that lay down in these fields at night, but I would have
never imagined a land bird would hunt and consume a water bird. I see the goose struggle long enough (less
than ten seconds) when I hand the binoculars back to Greg, he see’s it’s a goose,
and is just amazed as I am. He then
begins to tell me what the hawk is doing to the goose, I couldn’t handle
it. But then I remind myself this is
nature acting out. I get the binoculars again;
I see the hawk is not thrashing about as much and that the magpies are moving
in closer.
“Do you see that guy in his backyard?” Greg asks, “He is watching this
too! He is throwing rocks at the bird.” I zero in on this guy throwing rocks; I
wanted to throw rocks at him, if only I didn’t throw like a girl and it wasn’t
hundreds of feet away. Doesn’t he get
it? Its nature! One animal is the predator, the other is the
prey. It is sad it happened to be a
Canadian goose today, but dude, leave it alone and let it be dip shit.
We continue our walk and get back to our conversation that was immediately put
on hold. Turning around and heading back
we see the upheaval has moved further up the field, hopefully away from that
ass who thinks throwing rocks is the answer.
We get the binoculars out again, that is one satisfied hawk! The magpies are hanging around hoping they
get their taste soon. Each time the hawk
turns its head, munching on his dinner, the magpies fly up then realize the
hawk is not flying away or flying towards them, they glide back to the ground,
hoping.
I can’t wait for our next walk with fuzzy butt!
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