Snowflakes swirl clockwise around the yard. A red-tailed hawk flies over, flapping hard, pale feathers almost invisible in the falling snow.
hawks
January 25, 2013
Crows begin scolding a red-tailed hawk on the far side of the field, and a squirrel digging in the yard hurtles into the bridal wreath bush.
January 4, 2013
Sleek silhouette of a sharp-shinned hawk. In the rosebush’s densely scribbled heart, the faint throbbing of something with very small bones.
December 4, 2012
Trees glistening with raindrops cast shadows through the rising fog. A sudden ripple of squirrel alarm-calls as a hawk cuts through.
November 14, 2012
An immature redtail studies the ground from a low limb, drops into the weeds and comes up empty. High overhead, three Vs of tundra swans.
November 2, 2012
With the leaves down, I can see deep into the woods: two pileateds work both sides of a birch. A redtail hawk flies just below the treetops.
September 22, 2012
My mother emerges from the weeds beside the springhouse with a handful of mint. Behind her at the woods’ edge, a red-tailed hawk takes wing.
August 18, 2012
A hawk circles over the ridge, higher and higher, until it appears smaller and fainter than the white blood cells criss-crossing my retina.
March 13, 2012
The Cooper’s hawk’s kak-kak-kak, followed finally by a glimpse: rapid scissoring wings and a small bullet of a body veering into the pines.
March 7, 2012
Large gnats drift back and forth in front of the porch and a fly wanders the rim of my laptop. Two Cooper’s hawks chatter up in the woods.
October 12, 2011
White-throated sparrows in the meadow—their quavery notes. Behind the curtain of gold leaves, a split-second glimpse of a hawk’s wing.
March 7, 2011
Snow has turned all the lower limbs into wide white feathers, but treetops are bare against the blue. From somewhere in between, the hawk.
March 4, 2011
An urgent, nasal call: the Cooper’s hawks are back. The female glides into a tall pine while the male appears and disappears among the oaks.
February 26, 2011
Gray sky. A gray breast feather floats down and lands on the snow. Ten minutes later, a sharp-shinned hawk appears in the big maple.