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  1. Yes! One flew right through my peripheral vision this morning as I dressed for work.


    1. Cool! I’m not actually a good enough birder to be able to tell them apart from sharpies by sight, but the call is distinctive and very familiar — they nest in the woods up above my house every year, and always start courting about this time regardless of the weather.


  2. Ghazal of Burgeoning Things

    Thin virgules newly drawn on the upper limbs of trees;
    and in between, the gathering forms of nests.

    I thought the hydrangea bush was dead– but yesterday,
    beside the gate, buds of whorled green, clustered like nests.

    A pair of hawks glides in and out of the pines, exchanging
    urgent, nasal cries: Come hither? Come feather? Come nest?

    No longer indistinct, these warming undercurrents in the air.
    I’ll cut my hair, trade my soft greys for orange, I’ll leave the nest.

    I thought we’d inventoried every trail. But here’s another
    flocked with green, smelling of earth, littered with tiny nests.

    ~ Luisa A. Igloria
    03 04 2011



  4. THE FEMALE PRINCIPLE

    The hawks are back, so must the hunt:
    Will larger prey save the juncos this time?
    No grim reminders remain, rain rinses
    the stains on the now supple branches.

    But there must be an older scenario here:
    the female glides into a taller pine,
    her male consort plays a coy peek and hide
    (not quite a peck and ride yet) among oaks

    flexing sagging twigs, catching sticks
    that fall from frozen beaks of carpenter birds
    now hithering thithering, feathering nests
    for avian settlers should they lose time

    before spring breaks the hibernation mode
    of things that crawl, climb, cling, or cluck,
    and inflicts the nesting restlessness among
    the wanton and unafraid—the swallows

    that have come back from Capistrano
    and the hawks darting from pine to oak
    to find which tree fulfills a female caprice
    of frenzied flight from foe and friend alike

    who might dare scale the tallest pine
    where she perches diva-like on a sylvan porch
    till he absconds his oaken refuge and fly to her,
    bearing gifts of carrion and pledges of care,

    testaments really of the human condition:
    the God principle IS the female principle.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    Mississauga, Ont., 03-04-11

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