Not often do we find ourselves so positioned as to see a phenomenon of nature that is perhaps commonplace worldwide but not often witnessed by the human eye.
Yet such was so the other morning as I sat soaking up sunshine on the lee side of one of our out-building goat sheds in which my peacocks are housed for the months of winter.
The huge hardwood bush that in part, not parcel, corners our eastern property line, has a resident pair of large broad-wing hawks that return each spring to nest there. I have many times watched them circle and circle, each time higher on wings that seldom flap. At first as they glided skyward on the updrafts of warming air, I thought them to be that of the turkey vulture, but closer viewing proved I was mistaken.
This morning as I watched, they lifted above the treetops, then parted company. One circled higher and higher on wings that seldom folded. The other skimmed low over the short-cut grass of the nearby hilltop, then turned sharply towards me and skimmed lower still over the brown-tufted grass of the low-lying valley. Its flight was fast, dipping this way and that, as though not quite sure which way it was going. Then suddenly, not 30 feet from where I was sitting, without missing a wing beat, out shot a foot that grasped a mouse and out shot a second foot that grasped a second mouse.
Then with wings beating more rapidly, it screamed a victory cry or two as it quickly rose up, up, up in the air. It quietly short-circled a time or two and, surprising to me, dropped one of the mice. Being too busy watching the hunter, I had not noticed the whereabouts of its high-circling mate.
Then suddenly, in one closed winged powerful accurate swoop, it dove beneath and caught the released mouse in one of its out-stretched splayed claws.
Silhouetted now on a blue skyline, I watched as they headed in the direction of the woodlot. Not once, but twice, I saw them each playfully release their mouse and retrieve it by swooping again. Though the distance was greater and my vision hampered somewhat by the distant leafless tree line, I am quite sure, by the angle of their dives, that they exchanged the mice, one to the other, during their playful air acrobatics.
I have often seen playful action and moments of deep affection among animals both domestic and so-called wild, but I must admit that I feel highly honoured in being so positioned to have witnessed such playful interaction. It makes me wonder how little we know about things in the wild.
From my grin bin this week comes these paraprosdokians, which are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected.
1. Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.
2. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
3. We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105