24 Aug 2023 Red Tails in The Sunset

    Over the years I’ve had some strange encounters with wild birds. On August 24, 2015, as I was mowing the yard a Redtail hawk, about six feet from the ground, flew through the yard weaving its way between the ash, oak and tamarack trees, then swooped up and landed on the roof of the house. It's strange to see big birds like that land land there. They've flown past it, swerved past it, hovered beside it but very, very few, have landed on it that I've been aware. 

    Their search for prey would be wildly successful, I think, no less than from Oak Point across the creek where eagles, osprey, ravens and Great Grey owls hold court on frequent occasion. Seeing a hawk land on the roof then look back at noisy me on the riding lawn mower, provoked my attention especially when its wings suddenly pulled its body from the roof, then simultaneously folded against it, turned, and dove into the grass talons first.

    Rumbling across our rough worm-hilled yard, braked the mower and I thrust my left leg straight out to pull my cellphone out of my jean pocket. I peered into its tiny dark window against the brightness of the sun and punched  'two' to speed dial 'home.' Jackie answered, "Aneen," as she commonly does in Ojibwe with calls from friends and family.

 

    "Quick!" I said over the roar of the lawnmower. "Look outside below the bird feeder, there's a hawk in the grass with something in its talons!"

It had something in its talons.

    I could see Jackie at the big picture window. I hoped she could get a good picture from her vantage point. The hawk was just visible, its head above the slope of the hill. 

 

    I continued mowing. I was thinking about how the mower wasn't running the best and seemed under-powered when the hawk leapt from the grass and flew straight at me, swerved, twisted, and landed not eight feet away on an old corral post. I kept going away from it, toward the house, following the edge of the last mowed strip when I realized the hawk was using me to flush mice out of the high grass; I was his meal ticket. I speed-dialed Jackie again, "It's on the post north of the house!"

    The day before, Jackie and her son Craig, were standing in the yard west of the house, when we could hear a "Screee, screeee," overhead. We watched as two hawks in close proximity to one another flew over us just at tree-top level, then swung northwest and disappeared from view. 

    "That was interesting," I had said. "Maybe one of them was young and the other was showing it around the neighborhood."

 

   Then, not a couple minutes later, we heard another 'scree, scree' and a bald eagle and a immature bald eagle, in close proximity to one another, soared over us slowly gaining altitude as they circled over the creek, until we couldn't see them anymore. This was real phenomenon for Craig, but a no less curious sight for Jackie and I.

    The appearance of the Redtail hawk, so unafraid of me on the rider mower, and patient with Jackie and her camera in the yard, created a good hour's worth of wonder for both of us. As I drove toward the hawk, I was looking for mice scared by the mower too. I often see them scurrying through the grass when I use the tractor mower too.

Mouse catching buddies.

     I thought of the days when our dog, "Cubby," and cat, "Danni," would follow beside me, off to one side, and snatch up mice that the mower scared up. After catching a mouse, Danni would look around for Cubby and eat her mouse quick, before Cubby could steal it from her. I was their meal ticket too, in more ways than one.

Alighting on a steel post

 

   The hawk flew from the grass and up into some birches when Jackie got too close; another time she caught him alighting onto a post east of the house, his broad reddish-brown tail quite evident in the picture; another shot captured him in flight arising from it, the empty rain-gauge in the foreground. Sadly, I had to put the mower away to go to work. The hawk too left soon afterward. I wonder if it'll come back some day?

 

It left soon afterward.