Gnats backlit by the sun fly back and forth, reversing direction without slowing down even the slightest. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk.
Cooper’s hawk
The wings of insects shining in the sun where snowflakes flew two days ago. The Cooper’s hawk sounds as gung-ho as ever. I sharpen a knife.
A snow flurry turns into a squall, and all the birds fall silent—even the Cooper’s hawk. The ground is white in minutes: an onion snow.
Shadbush blossoms merge with the sky. A red-tailed hawk drops in and is quickly driven off by the Cooper’s hawk, who lands one good strike.
Overcast and cool. Up on the ridge, two or three crows scold a Cooper’s hawk: high-pitched whines, a gargling rattle. The hawk zips off.
Lust is in the air: a turkey gobbling in the field, a Cooper’s hawk calling in the woods, and right in front of me, a sunlit cloud of lekking gnats.
Cooper’s hawks calling up on the ridge. One of them takes flight: such a small bird to be so strident! And the sky begins to turn white.
Cold and blustery. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk, who comes rocketing out of the woods a second later with a redtail in pursuit.
The Cooper’s hawk lands in the yard and the doves scatter—a cacophony of flutes. He flies off east where the icy snow is a blaze of white.
Overcast at sunrise. The cak-cak-cak of a Cooper’s hawk beginning to think about courtship and nesting, somewhere up in the snowy woods.
Cold and gray—the weather, but also me. A sharp-shinned or Cooper’s hawk comes flying low over the trees, clearly keen on getting breakfast.
Three Carolina wrens kvetching on and on in the heat. Up in the woods, a Cooper’s hawk chatters twice. Could they be nesting again?
The silhouette of a small accipiter—doubtless one of the resident Cooper’s hawks—swift and silent as it disappears into the trees.
Again this morning around 10:30, for the fifth day in a row, a Cooper’s hawk calls up in the woods. In the hawk’s mind, it might be a song.