Hark! A Predator at my Door

“Can I come get my hawk?”

I was still in my robe.

Answering the doorbell, my husband could see a young man holding his phone.

Minutes before, a hawk had flown into the glass door to our patio. I’d been watching it as both the bird and I stood dazed and confused.

It’s common for dove to fly into the glass and when I heard the thud, that’s what I thought had happened. But this thud was more like a crash. Grateful the glass hadn’t cracked, I jumped up, saw this HUGE bird, thankful it wasn’t dead, I grabbed my dog’s collar, and yelled for my husband.

“Is that a hawk?”

At first, the bird was still as a statue. Then it blinked its eyes. Then it started turning its head, rotating almost as far as an owl. But it made no attempt to fly.

What do you do with a hawk? Call Fish, Game and Wildlife?

Thankfully, that’s when its person appeared.

It never occurred to me that this beautiful creature belongs to someone.

The guy said it’s a “she,” and She is a 16-year-old European goshawk. It had GPS tracking and an antenna. Maybe a camera.

From above, who is watching whom?

All in the Family

Falcons, hawks, and eagles are all part of a family of predators.

Britannica records falconry as an ancient sport, noting societies throughout the world that engage in training falcons, hawks, and eagles. Falconry, aka. Hawking, involves the training of these large birds to return to their owners.

Falcons hunt small prey, and where I live a smorgasbord of choices exists.

Later that same day, the news reported that 270 people were in Lubbock for the 61st annual North American Falconers Association Field Meet [1].

Part of the same family as hawks, eagles are much larger birds. America’s national bird is a bald eagle. Impressive symbol of freedom.

Auburn University’s icon is “War Eagle.”[2] The first eagle associated with Auburn had survived the Civil War. A man found the eagle alive on a battlefield and kept it as a pet for thirty years.

Legend holds that this eagle flew around the football field during the Auburn against Georgia game in 1892, turning the tide of that game to Auburn. At the end of this game where fans had started yelling “War Eagle,” the eagle took a sudden dive and died on the field. Since then, Auburn fans shout “War Eagle” to spur on their teams.

Today, at every home game, an eagle soars around the stadium and lands on the fifty-yard line before the game begins.

Discussion around our dinner table about how that first eagle became the emblem for Auburn and its game war cry, one of my grandson’s had read that eagles were used during the Civil War to intercept carrier pigeons. Who knew? War Eagle.

Poetry in Motion

I have been taught that poetry is the highest form of writing. Makes sense that the consolidation of thought and feeling into fewer words takes skill, art, and craft. Songwriters belong in the family of poets.

As a writer, I am late to the poetry party. Unless I consider pop songs that I still remember the words. Unless I count the Psalms that I memorized.

I have only touched the shore of reading poetry, put my feet in the water that reaches beyond the horizon. I appreciate the minds of poets who use words to invite readers to consider more than the eye sees.

Mary Oliver is my newfound favorite poet.

THE WORLD I LIVE IN

I have refused to live

locked in the orderly house

of reasons and proofs.

The world I live in and believe in

is wider than that. And anyway,

what’s wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn’t believe what once or

twice I have seen. I’ll just

tell you this:

only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one.

Mary Oliver, Devotions

The hawk that landed on my doorstep reminded me of the miracle of Creation and the vast numbers of creatures that inhabit the earth. And the Creator who made everything.

King David wrote:

O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8

Consider This

You see, David the shepherd boy, the man after God’s own heart, and Mary Oliver are on the same page. They look up, consider the heavens, envision the world and its myriad creatures, and land on the same question. What is man? Not that man is mindful of God, rather, astounded that God is mindful of man!

Beyond reason and proofs, above and around and in each living thing, God has left his fingerprints.

[1] https://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/latest/more-than-250-travel-to-west-texas-to-experience-hawking/

[2] https://www.auburn.edu/main/welcome/traditions/wareagle.php