The Hawk...

Art Mulder

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Location
London, Ontario
Found this proud boy/girl when I was out for a stroll at lunch time.

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(I work on a university campus, in an urban area, alongside a small river. Not exactly the wilds.)

Kind of a junky camera, sorry. It's an older camera we have here in the lab. Wish I had had a better on. As it was, It was only about 12 ft off the ground in the tree eating ... something ... and I was probably within 30 ft of it, and it was ignoring us.

Cool.
 
One of the mechanics at work tells a story of working in the shop and stuff falling on him, he kept waving at it but it wouldn't stop. Finally he said "What is this??", walked around, looked up and a hawk was above him in the rafters ripping the fur off a rabbit and eating it. It was the fur falling that he was swiping at! Jim.
 
I had one of those guys miss my head by about 2 feet. I was standing outside the patio exit from the cafeteria at work when it swooped past to pick a sparrow off the top of the 6-7 ft shrubs. Scared the crud out of me. All I saw was a big black blur coming right for me, followed by a little explosion of feathers from the shrubs. Had to walk around the line of shrubs to figure out what just happened then saw him on the lawn with the sparrow pinned before he took off and I double check my shorts.
 
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When I saw the thread title I thought I'd be reading about Ronnie Hawkins ... :dunno: ...

We feed the birds in our backyard, so we sometimes get a little red hawk hunting under the feeders and yup ... he sure is a blur and ... afraid of nothing. Sometimes he'll snag a pigeon or a mourning dove and sit there on the grass glaring at you, almost daring you to just try and take it away from him. Sometimes you almost think he's hissing at you.

Great pics Art!!
 
Great shots, Art. We've got a resident pair of (I believe) redtail hawks that roost in the back yard neighbor's pine tree. LOML often sees one or both come in to roost in the late afternoon as she's watering the plants in the back yard. She loves most any kind of critter, but she gets a special charge out of the hawks. I'll have to show her your pics.
 
Nice pics. From the pic in bottom left I don't think it is ignoring you!

Looks like an immature Red-shouldered Hawk, but since I can't find my ID book I'm just guessing. Looks a little like an Osprey (more common in your area). RSH would be the smaller of the two with short, rounded wings.
 
You guys are being far too polite. :eek:

Sure, the pictures are okay, but I just can't help imagining what I would have had with a more modern Canon, with image stabilization software, and maybe a slightly bigger lens
 
Thanks for the pics. They are magnificent birds. The country is very hilly out here and the hawks glide along the contours of the hills to surprise bunnies and mice (and innocent woodworkers). They have come so close a few times I could feel the breeze from them. And yup, I had to check my shorts to be sure.:rofl:
 
Mike,

Wow... it's not every day one of my favorite poets gets mentioned on here. Not only that, but woodworkers would love Jeffers. Back in the 20s and 30s, when next to nobody lived along that stretch of seacoast, he built a house on the cliff looking out over the ocean. And by built, I mean he built it with his own hands, out of local stone. Then, realizing he needed a place to work away from the house, he built a stone tower, again by himself, and set up on the upper floor. You gotta admire someone like that. Here's a pic:

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And the poems are strong. Try this one, and remember he was writing 80 years ago! http://plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=3070

But his best is the purse seine. When people ask me the difference between east coast and west coast poetry, I always point to this one: no east coaster could possibly write something like that. If you've ever flown into LA at night, you'll understand the brilliance of his comparison with the fish being caught up in the sardine net. And he wrote that long before LA was what it is now...

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3077/

Thanks,

Bill
(suddenly terribly homesick for the coast... ;)
 
Yes, Jeffers was a powerful poet. I remember the first time I read "Hurt Hawks" and the impact it had on me. For a while afterwards I didn't want to re-read it because of the way it affected me.

I won't give a list of my favorite poems because that gives a glimpse of a person's soul. But I will mention one that had a powerful effect on me back when I was drafted during the Vietnam war - "Lessons of the War" by Henry Reed. If you were married or had physical problems, and later, if you had a high lottery number, you were able to continue living a normal civilian life. But those who were drafted faced two years of military life. They probably spent six or more months in basic and advanced infantry training before they were sent to Vietnam. Read the second section of "Lessons of the War", called Judging Distances, with that time line in mind.

Mike
 
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