raptors

November Sunsets – Day 1098

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Tonight’s Sunset – Photo: L. Weikel

November Sunsets

For all the wild and wooly wind and rain that thrashed through our area earlier today, Karl, Pacha, Brutus, and I still managed to get a walk in. And oh my – there’s just something so exquisitely Maxfield Parrish about November sunsets.

The colors and cloud configurations we witnessed made it seem as if we were walking inside a kaleidoscope, they shifted and changed so fluidly before our eyes. When we first set out, I was smitten with what appeared to be a massive cloud raptor rising in the east, reflecting the pinky-peach rays of the sun that was just barely sinking below the horizon in the opposite direction. When I looked at the photo, I was shocked to see the pointy chin and just-a-little-creepy expression of a devilish looking man on the right.

Cloud Raptor and “Onlooker” – Photo: L.Weikel

Hawks Abounded

Our walk was littered by several substantial chunks of dead tree branches. Swirling gusts of wind were still with us, mostly high up in the treetops, rushing and whooshing and occasionally making us wonder if we should take cover.

Hawk 1 – Photo: L. Weikel

But the best part of this walk, in concert with the colors and clouds, were the three hawks that were swooping and diving, soaring and skimming the field beside us. We think they may have been Sharp-shinned Hawks. Whatever type they were, they put on a joyful aerial display, riding the gusts and quite obviously playing with (or showing off for) the others.

Hawk 2 – Photo: L. Weikel

Watching them play, I was reminded of the Red-shouldered Hawks that were so raucous in the springtime, doing their mating dance right in front of me for the first time in my memory. Well – they are back, literally waking us up every morning for the past week or so. Shrieking from the treetops literally outside of our bedroom windows.

Needless to say, our bird feeders have been a bit like a ghost town recently!

Hawk 3 – Photo: L. Weikel

What’s the Message?

I have to wonder. Honestly, I’ve been inundated with Hawk medicine lately! What a gift – and what a challenge to discern what we’re being asked to pay attention to.

How am I supposed to write with this on my arm? Photo: L. Weikel

(T-13)

You Decide – Day 877

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Laughing Wolfman or Mummy? – Photo: L. Weikel

You Decide

Ah, there’s nothing like the first days of spring, when every day is a joyful reminder that life does exist outside of four walls. (It doesn’t matter what four walls you’ve been looking at, either. Or even if you have the luxury of being cooped up within a plethora of walls. The point is escaping walls altogether.) This is when our longer trek, the four mile walk-about, calls to us like a siren. Today’s walk, though, yielded a special treat – but you decide what it is:

Is it a smiling Wolfman? Or is it a mummy?

Just look at the photo above! My vote is that it’s a smiling Wolfman. The material’s coloring makes it look like there’s fur all over the face. It’s a simple identification – but clearly Wolfy.

Karl, of course, maintains that it looks much more like a common mummy. I maintain mummy’s wraps are almost always more of a white-ish color, unless, of course, they’re wrapping a wound that wept some sort of fluid. Then they’re usually white or off-white with darker or sometimes bloodied splotches.

The Truth

The truth, of course, is that this little bundle we discovered at the edge of a road that’s rarely used and a forest, is actually either an owl or a hawk pellet. These lovely little discoveries are the detritus a raptor yarps* up after a meal that yields stuff that no creature can extract sustenance from: fur, skeletons, claws, and teeth, for instance. It’s a wonder how these birds have gullets that do the fancy separating, taking the nutrition ‘in’ and letting the stuff that could hurt them go back ‘out’ the same way it came in.

I’ll be honest. I poked it with a stick after photographing it to see if I could find any bones. I’ve read about how fully intact skeletons can be found in some pellets, which I would love to discover. (Oddly, but rather efficiently, there’s a cottage industry that’s developed harvesting these pellets!)

No such luck this time. But it did make me question whether this was an owl pellet or a hawk pellet. Apparently hawks tend to yarp up pellets that contain mostly fur and feathers. They’re much more fastidious about picking bones clean of their prey, while owls just swallow the whole thing and let their innards do the work of separating.

I learn something new every day!

My poking yielded no discernible bones, so my semi-scientific conclusion is that our discovery was probably a hawk pellet. But I still think it looks like the face of a laughing Wolfman!

 

P.S.: *I’m pretty sure I first learned the word yarp used as a verb to describe what birds of prey do when they orally expel the undigestible pieces of their prey from the set of youth-oriented books, Guardians of Ga’Hoole.**

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Hawklets – Day 850

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Keeping an eye on the feeders – Photo: L. Weikel

Hawklets

Yesterday’s post celebrated my identification of the very vocal and aerobatic presence of Red-shouldered Hawks in our hamlet. (Yes, the cluster of homes on our road was at one time designated a hamlet on old maps.) This evening I’m happy to report that the sky-dancing, shrieking, gift-giving (or so it appeared), and outright over-the-top public displays of affection (read: avian lust) continued today. If vigorous persistence is any barometer of success, we’re going to have some hawklets in the neighborhood this year. Not a real word, but it’ll be my word for the larger chicks hanging out this year.

And if the breeding information provided by Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is accurate, it sounds like this behavior could last until the end of the month (although I can’t fathom why it should take so long – they sure looked like they were getting lucky yesterday and today), with a nest of 3 to 4 eggs being the result. I believe we should have hatchlings sometime in May – but won’t actually see them fledge (if we’re privy to that, of course) until the end of June to mid July.

Even though I knew they were hanging around our house because we provide a post-coital snack bar, they were almost annoyingly obvious about that today. Choosing to mess around on the branch of a tree right by our driveway gave them the added bonus of being able to keep a hawkeye on our feeders. And boy, did those Red-shoulders create anxiety in everybody else.

Cardinal in Flight – Photo: L.Weikel

Other Avian Love

Both yesterday and today the number of cardinals – and their obvious affection for each other – was almost as noticeable as the hawks’ enthusiasm for each other. It appears we may be supporting at least four mating pairs of Cardinals this year, too!

But the lengths all the other birds had to go to in order to avoid being snatched up by lust-fueled starving Hawk beaks were extensive. Hours at a time would go by with only the calls of the Red-shoulders piercing the quiet. But then, gradually, the lookouts would probably advise that the predators were napping or something because all of a sudden the feeders and the branches surrounding the feeders would become a cacophony of chatter.

One Last Spring Exclamation

PEEPERS! Last night we heard a few early birds. The first to hatch in the primordial ooze that is known as swampy field land near High Rocks State Park entered life singing. Tonight, those brave newbies were joined by significantly more buddies. Not yet deafening, they were still making lovely music together this evening.

As I said yesterday, this initial taste of true springtime weather did not disappoint!

(T-261)

Back in the Saddle – Day 463

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February Flowers – Photo: L. Weikel

Back in the Saddle

It’s been six days since I managed to get any serious walking in. Between the weather and work and other obligations, I’ve simply not logged the mileage. And I have to admit: I yearn to get back in the saddle and return to Mother Nature.

Last week was a bust. And the most frustrating thing about it, to me, is that last week I probably could’ve most used the exposure to nature and the physical connection to the earth.

I just checked the tracker on my phone and see that from last Monday to Saturday, I averaged less than half a mile per day. My top day I managed to walk 0.51 miles and my worst I only walked 0.29 miles. Not good.

A Re-New(ed) Leaf

I’ve at least managed to start this week out on a much better foot. I averaged 4.3 yesterday and 4.1 today.

I have to admit, I was both excited and delighted by the mild weather today. Simply having sunshine brightening my windows made a difference in my mood. And that’s double-edged warmth and sunshine, since they’re coaxing dramatic spring growth to not only sprout but now blossom here and there.

Cloud Raptor – Photo: L. Weikel

Bits of Magic

But the best part about getting back out on my walking circuit is the opportunity to stumble across random messengers in the sky and discover assorted bits of magic on blankets of moss simply awaiting my gaze.

For instance, I was given a timely reminder to rise up and shift my perspective on recent events in my life when I looked up and saw what appeared, to me at least, to be an obvious cloud raptor hovering above me. “Get up, Lisa! Rise above the shock and sadness,” I could hear it admonishing me. “See what’s playing out, where it originated, and where it’s headed.”

No small task, but absolutely do-able; at least the first two suggestions anyway. Hard to tell where anything’s headed in the world right now.

What’s the Lesson?

Funny you should ask. Only several hundred yards from where I first discovered the cloud raptor, I started taking photos of little yellow flowers blossoming in a cluster on hillock of moss surrounding a maple tree.

There it was, plain as day (to my nature-starved eyes, anyway). A piece of bark in the shape of a wolf’s head. Hmm. According to the Medicine Cards®*, Wolf might represent the teacher, the pathfinder, or the forerunner of new ideas that need to be shared with the clan.

Maybe. Maybe not.

At the very least, I feel I’m being told to ‘look for teachings’ no matter what is happening – and trust my intuition. Nothing is random; and I can only imagine (and trust) my eyes needed to be opened.

One thing is for certain: it feels great to be back in the saddle, seeing the signs, listening to Mother Nature, and feeling her love and support.

Bark Wolf – Photo: L. Weikel

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