Coastline Pilot

January 17, 2003

 

Chasing the Muse

By Catharine Cooper

 

The cacophony of the house finches, wrens and doves plays out as a morning symphony, filling my back yard with a soothing antidote to air or auto traffic.   Each small twitter becomes a piece of the chorus as they flit from feeder to tree and back to feeder.  The Mourning doves socialize on the platform, while the American goldfinches, bathed in brilliant yellow, hang upside down feasting on thistle.  “Mr. Nuthatch” makes an early appearance, dressed as usual in his smartly tailored tuxedo.  He has the unique ability to forage while climbing head first down tree trunks using only his feet.  He pulls succulent bits from the seed tube and hops to the top of the eucalyptus, where he begins to ‘hatch’ the seed – first by wedging it in the a small crevice in the bark and then systematically hammering or hacking with his bill to break open the kernel.   

 

The morning music carries into the fullness of the day as chores take precedent over the pleasure of watching the birds.  Suddenly, there is a deafening silence.  Without having to look, I know its source – the Cooper’s hawk.

 

Quietly, I walk to the window and gaze into the trees, searching for his elegant feathered form.  He is one of several who frequent the yard, hunting the smaller birds.  One “youngster” sports a tracking band placed on his leg by Fish and Game.  Sometimes, the hawks will announce their arrival with a high-pitched cry, but usually, like stealth bombers, they soar low to tree line in hopes of catching their prey unaware.  Swooping between the branches, they startle the birds who scatter with wild abandon.

 

I admit it.  I’m in love with raptors.  I have been since I saw my first hawk in the fields when I was five.  He hovered in the sky, then pulled his wings into his body and plummeted head first toward the earth.   I thought he had crashed, but after a moment, he rose back into the air, a field mouse carefully grasped in his talons. 

 

Then, as now, the raptors’ intensity and razor sharp focus command my reverence.  Their vision is said to be eight times that of humans, and they are able to spot a small mammal up to a mile away.  To view one closely through scope or binoculars and experience their gaze is to become acquainted with the feeling of being hunted. 

 

I am alarmed at the decimation of their natural habit.  After facing endless threats from poisoning, high power line electrocution, and deliberate extermination campaigns, they are now challenged by the bulldozer.  Planned communities have replaced acre after acre of open spaces. The ecosystem would be overrun with small rodents without their contribution.  Aliso Woods and other regional parks have erected nesting and viewing posts with the hope that these structures will woo raptors – including owls - back into the fields.

 

On a recent local wilderness hike, numerous Redtails soared overhead.  They drifted on broad wings, heads ever-turning, eyes poised searching their next meal.  A White kite, perched starkly in the branches of a dying tree, scanned the small canyon.  A spotlight in the midst of dark chaparral, his white feathers gleamed in the sunlight.  I unsuccessfully photo “stalked” him for several miles.

 

A pile of dove feathers greeted me at the door upon my return.   My first thought was the neighbor’s cat, but they don’t have one.  Not a single trace of the bird, save the feathers remained, a remarkable testament to the hunting skills of the species.  The hawk has been successful.

 

The symphony returns to the backyard.  I scoop feed onto the platform and giggle as a flock of pigeons muscles in on the dove territory.  They seem so huge in scale compared to the red-breasted house finches.  As the sun wanes, the birds drift away to distant branches for a night’s rest.   Across the canyon, the Cooper’s hawk makes one last hungry pass, then swoops into the yard and lands on the fence. He is tantalizingly close.  I hold my breath, barely moving.   Our eyes lock.  Can he read my thoughts?  Does he sense my respect and awe?   Then, as quickly as he appeared, he is gone.  He wings across the canyon into the evening sky and I am left to wait, for yet another encounter.

 

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