Tuesday, September 16, 2008

You Don't Miss What You've Never Known

When I was kid, we hardly ever saw this. It wasn't until after we figured out DDT was a bad thing and until after we ceased to use it and the hawks started to return that we realized they had been missing for all those years. Now you see them perched on fence posts, on the posts that hold utility wires, on the skeletons of dead cottonwood trees, on the tops of the largest of the hay and straw bales, and you see them flying and gliding and diving overhead and along the road. They are beautiful. I am glad they are back.

1 comment:

Paddle said...

I saw a hawk on the "highline" wire the other day. I don't think I've ever seen one actually perched on the wire itself (but then again, I'm not very observant). My partner told me it was a new adaptation to fool mice into thinking that the hawk was just a harmless bird. It almost worked on me.