I considered folding this piece into another one of my assorted recurring features that fail to recur, but I decided it wasn’t necessary. This one can stand — or more accurately fly — on its own.
If memory serves, my affinity for large birds began as I kid. I’m not much of an artist, but I can weirdly recall drawing pictures of peregrine falcons sometime in mid-elementary school. Similarly I recall reading a lot of books about bald eagles. I don’t think I ever saw a lot of these birds, but they were very interesting to me. Somewhere along the way I decided it would be very cool to have a trained raptor (the category of birds encompassing hawks, eagles, falcons) as a pet. I loved the idea of being able to have the bird rest on my arm, then fly off into the sky before ultimately returning to me. This was always a highly unlikely vision, and certainly became way more unlikely once a family with children came into the picture. Can’t really have a hawk hanging around the house that might nip off a child’s finger. At least that’s what “society” tells me.
Imagine my delight when we moved into a lovely wooded neighborhood more than 10 years ago and discovered that we shared the space with a non-zero number of hawks. Or at least what seemed to be hawks, based on my quick googling. Maybe they are eagles, but pretty sure its hawks. Whatever the species they are around and I like watching them. We could be out for a walk and spot one sitting in a tree, or sometimes on a light post. Or see them soaring around from tree to tree in the woods just beyond our backyard.
My delight was enhanced even further when we made the discovery of a hawk that liked to frequent our backyard at a particular time of year. As far as I was concerned, our playscape is your playscape, ferocious master of the sky. Make yourself right at home. The excitement then turned into amazement and a bit of curiosity when we realized the hawk (or eagle, whatever) would return to our yard on almost the exact day for multiple years in a row. Who knew they could read a calendar?
My hawk fondness is fresh in my brain as I was driving out of our my neighborhood and I became (perhaps too easily) distracted by a hawk flying in the distance. Perhaps it’s no coincidence Declan is so bird obsessed considering his father completely lost interest in where he was driving whilst watching a bird flying around the sky. It was a blip in an otherwise normal day and had left my mind minutes later (or maybe it didn’t considering I’m writing about it weeks later) but it was just a nice thing that brought me a brief interlude of happiness and made my day maybe 2-percent better than it would have otherwise been.
How fortunate that my nearly life-long interest in birds of prey could pay off with these little out-of-nowhere bursts of joy. It’s enough to make a guy want to invest in a falconry glove and try to lure one of these suckers down to me. Perhaps it’s not too late for my dream to come true! To be continued…
I, and my family, identify with everything you've mentioned in this post. Loved reading it.
“At least that’s what ‘society’ tells me.” ☺️