Sharpies, and My Corner of the Earth

My corner of the earth, my neighborhood, is generally extremely quiet.  That's to be expected during the week, when you live in a place where two-income families are the norm, but on weekends, it is almost quieter.  Quieter, since you're expecting the shout of kids and the roar of lawn mowers and the chattering of neighbors, and you hear none of that.


What you hear, lately, are the pair of immature Sharp Shinned hawks that have fledged their nest and take great delight in terrorizing the cul-de-sac wildlife.  A Sharpie has a call that is comical in its whininess and insistency.  And we have two, siblings, who sit wing-to-wing on the branches of the white pines and yell at each other in fantastically loud voices.  I have yet to hear an adult respond to the sound, but I've seen the parents from time to time, mostly looking at my chickens in a wistful sort of way.


A few minutes ago, I heard one of them making a racket outside.  I went to go make sure that the chickens, who were out of the pen to find their own food, were ok.  I didn't see the hawks, but I saw the chickens huddling under the kids' playscape, safely under cover.  Far above, thunder rolled around in the clouds like some amazing party going on in a world you didn't even know existed.


The calls kept coming, annoying in their pitch and frequency.  The chickens were never going to leave their cover with that sound in the air.  I stomped down the deck, across the side yard, and toward the shed.  I am lousy at locating the area a sound is coming from, and I basically thought that if I made a big enough ruckus, the hawk would flush, I could get a good look at it, and the chickens would finally go back to their pen.


The plan, inelegant as it was, worked, and far above my head, I saw one of the sharpies take to flight, holding something with a small rodent-like tail in its talons.  The thunder continued its slow rumble across the horizon, and I figured I'd better get the chickens in before the rain got to us.

But then I heard the call again.  The whining, pleading call of one of those hawks.  I looked up, and high in my neighbors' white oak, I saw the other sibling.  It was backlit, so it showed as mostly a lump of black, but when I walked into my neighbors' yard and got the sun at my back, I could see it better.  It was still sporting the brown, mottled plumage of immaturity, just like every other hawk, but it was old enough that you could see where the markings of adulthood would come in.  I thought about the conversation I'd had with other people on my cul-de-sac the day before.


"Hey, homeschooler!"  one of them had yelled in a friendly way, when she saw me and three of the boys setting out for a walk.  "Who do you use for science?"
"What?"  came my intelligent response, and I tried to figure out what she was asking me.
"Do you know a nature guy?"  her husband asked.  I drew closer still not sure what they were asking.  Both of them are teachers in one of the local public schools, and I thought they were going to offer a resource.
"There's a bird in our backyard that hasn't been seen in the state in seventy years!"  the wife said.  Finally, I caught up with the conversation.  She was talking about the Sharp Shinned hawks, which had been born in a nest in the woods behind these people's house;  a nest made of large twigs, bark lined, probably on top of an existing squirrel nest.  Immature hawks all look more or less alike, and it's always more exciting to spot the exotic bird than the common one.
"Well, I sort of know birds,"  I say, "what bird are you talking about?"
"Come look!"  both husband and wife say, and lead me to the end of their driveway, where there's a hawk perched in one of the branches of a tall white pine.  "The neighbor," they say, motioning to their next door neighbor's house, "says he looked it up on the Internet, and that it's a Peregrine falcon!"
I nod, thinking before speaking.  "I have some bird books back home.  Let me go get them."  I know how people prefer the exotic to the common, and I want to be armed with information on the loveliness of the common before I break the news to them.

"The thing is," I say, returning with an old copy of Peterson's Field Guide, "Peregrines nest on cliffs.  That's why reintroductions in city areas have had some success- the birds nest on the top of skyscrapers."  The wife begins to nod enthusiastically.
"Yes,  the neighbor said the pictures he saw of the birds were all on tops of buildings!"
"Well, Peregrines don't really nest in heavy woods like this.  Plus, even as immature birds, like that one is, you'd be able to see the 'mustache" that most falcons have.  This one doesn't have it.  What you've got here is either a Cooper's hawk or a Sharp Shinned hawk.  And to tell the difference between those two, you can look at head size and tail shape."
They listened carefully, and with growing interest as I showed them the difference between Coopers, Sharpies and Peregrines.  I left the book with them, which they took enthusiastically, and went on my walk.  I could hear the adolescent scream of the Sharpie behind me for a good long way, and I thought of how much there is for each of us to learn about own own corner of the earth.