When I go outside for a walk, I should always take my camera.
I do not always take my camera.
Because I think fate is funny. And it rarely disappoints.
So it was in late March when, coming home from a dog walk to a local park, I spied something bigger than a pigeon or crow hopping from branch to branch in the canopy above a suburban residential street corner. I didn’t have my camera, but managed a snap on the phone, and later identified a Cooper’s Hawk from the blurry, far-away image.
Before I ever picked up a camera with the intention of capturing birds in the frame, I had a preoccupation with all things raptorish. A high school girlfriend lived on a farm, and taught me by example to keep my head at a certain angle as I walked through a landscape, the better to spot the telltale swoop and soar of a bird that was definitely not looking for seeds or worms. Southern Ontario is rich with hawks, falcons and vultures, and it really only takes looking up over field or meadow to become acquainted with them. I have for decades pestered family and friends with hawk and vulture sightings, pointing skyward to broad wings spread wide.
My first trips to in-laws in the Pacific Northwest brought me within close sight of Ospreys and Bald Eagles hunting the coasts, sounds, and inlets of Washington State. Various downtown office buildings I’ve frequented have been host to Peregrine Falcons, and once I found the remains of an American Kestrel on my condo terrace. Poor thing failed to detect the UV reflective glass wall in time, likely while pursuing prey. Such a beautiful, colourful, compact little killer, the Kestrel.
A Golden-crowned Kinglet. Also known as a “light snack” for a hawk.
As much as I appreciate tiny birds like Chickadees and Kinglets, my walks (with or without the camera) have me scanning the top canopy of very tall trees, looking for the birds that might want to eat Chickadees and Kinglets if they could somehow catch them.
On a morning walk a day later, I swung by the same corner on the off chance it was a favourite for the Cooper’s I’d spotted before. Jackpot. Not one, but two Cooper’s, dipping and swooping from tree to tree, carefully selecting young shoots to scissor off with their powerful beaks, and carrying them high into a well-vantaged nest they’d clearly been working on for days.
I don’t know the etiquette of these kinds of things. When you stumble on what will soon become a very covert raptor house hidden behind a thick mesh of leaves, do you stand around watching, making it obvious to the hawks that you know where they live? Was I pissing them off by snapping photos of their home-building? I hurried through a quick set of shots and left for work, hoping I hadn’t broken any unwritten rules.
I’m a Cooper’s Hawk, and I approve this stick.
For a week, I fretted. Every swing by the Cooper’s nest turned up no hawks. An empty basket of sticks high in the tree was the only evidence they’d ever been there. Had my presence made that corner uninhabitable for the Cooper’s. Had I wasted all their effort on construction, and were they now somewhere a few kilometers away, going through the same laborious process?
Thankfully, no. Repeating my cameraless dog-walk with Birdy, I turned onto the hawk’s street and immediately spotted the telltale gentle upswing of an expert flier. How to describe the feeling? Relief? Definitely. But also, a familiar quiet satisfaction I’ve felt in the past watching one of my kids do something that required no instruction from me. In my internal monologue, that feeling sounds like this: “Oh thank god — I can die now because they’ll be okay on their own.”
Bring on another week, and with it a sudden rager of a spring storm in southern Ontario. Pounding rain, often freezing, dropping tree limbs everywhere to knock out powerlines, hail and fierce winds, lightning cracking through the air horizontally. I got caught in the onslaught while grocery shopping, and sat in my car checking in on friends and family by text, and worrying about my hawks.
It’s a stupid human thing to take ownership over creatures who don’t need us in the least, but that’s what we do. Had my hawks survived the catastrophic weather? I mean, trees younger than theirs had dropped branches all over the neighbourhood. How was a nest woven from loose sticks supposed to deal with that wind and hail? I had felt threatened while encased in steel and tempered glass. What can feathers do against that kind of storm?
A storm-proof Cooper’s nest, apparently.
I sort of knew they’d be fine, but there was only one way to be sure. The next morning, early, I hiked to their corner, and stood happily watching them work the neighbourhood for breakfast from an unshattered nest.
I can’t help these Cooper’s Hawks, but I will keep pretending I can. And I’ll report back here with any developments.
Don’t worry about me, puny human — go do something about climate change.
“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”