Close encounters

[larryhammer]

So yesterday morning, I was riding my bike to work, and I look up and see this large bird stooping straight towards me very fast. As in, rilly rilly fast. As in, before I realized I'd seen it, it flipped wing-end-on and swooped past me. More or less simultaneously, I felt the wind of a falcon's passage on my cheek and heard a dove on the curb beside me explode into flibbertypanic flight. I turned around and saw the distinctive wing profile and tail of a peregine as it swerved away, in a curve that precisely expressed its distain for idiots who come between it and its prey just as it's diving.

And only then, about a second after first bird, adrenaline kicked in. Somehow, I managed to not hit anything before my cardiovascular system had calmed down.

Whee!

---L.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yowzers! I would NOT like to be stooped by a hawk. It could probably tumble one off one's bike, at the very least.

And that reminds me. A week or so ago a friend was telling me a story that someone on this e-mail list of descendents of Shetland Islanders shared. True story, of a woman out working her garden, baby slung in a wool sling. Before she knew it a hawk had stooped, grabbed up the wooly sling, baby inside, and flapped away--out over the sea.

She ran screaming back to the village, where people got a leaky old boat down to the shore, and they oared after the bird as fast as they could. They got to the other island, where the people told them of the cliffs where the birds usually nested. The cliffs, being utterly sheer from top to shore, had to be climbed down to, and a small boy was chosen. As it happened he heard the babe waking (it had apprently slept during its flight) and he found the nest, and the baby laid inside, unharmed. he picked up the baby and returned to his rope, and was hauled up, before the adult bird could return and fight. The babe opened its eyes and smiled at him, according to the story.

The locals and the visitors celebrated, and an old man, observing that the babe was a girl, made a joke about the boy and the baby being wed one day. But that's just what happened.

They had a lot of kids, some of whom came to America, and their descendents read about the story on the list.

[larryhammer]

I'm surprised Dunnett didn't use the story in King Hereafter.

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Too happy of an ending?

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

The hawks I have watched all tear prey apart as soon as they get it. I'm very skeptical.

There's nothing like the sound of a hawk hitting another bird.

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

It's a lovely story, though I don't see how it could be factual. Even a fully grown eagle can't lift more than about 4 lbs.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I suspect that this is an island legend, but it's a great story. It reminds me of the bit in The In-Laws where Peter Falk claims that he's seen mosquitos so big they can carry away small children.

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

On the close encounters thing itself, the closest I've been is to a hawk in the wild was one that dove in on something by the side of the road just before I drove by. It flew just past the car, carrying a mouse in its claws.

[larryhammer]

We've had hawks pace the car for a second or two several times. There's a lot of birds of prey in the open scrubland that is our desert. Only once (or twice?) has it been carrying anything — this last summer, when driving through Utah.

---L.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

I had a great view from my office when I was working for an academic publisher. One day, I saw a flock of (omnipresent) pigeons flying in a very odd fashion: they were in a tight formation, and banking hard. Then I saw something streak right through the flock, *stop* for a shuddering millisecond, and continue on. It took a moment for my brain to register that I'd just seen a hawk in the middle of one of North America's biggest cities take out a pigeon on the wing. Looking much heavier, a large bird flapped over to a nearby tree and settled in for lunch.

It was scary and remarkable and thrilling and wonderful, all at once. I love watching hawks, and knowing that they're finding ways to settle into the urban landscape.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Wow!

I got stooped by a Canada Jay once, or rather several times. Turns out this particular Canada Jay loved the particular candy I was eating and wanted his share. Around the world there are tourists' photos of me getting "attacked," although he only brushed me and aimed for the ugly lumpy chocolate and cherry bar which I can no longer remember the name of except Brown and Haley made them. The wildest part was it took me a couple of stoops before someone pointed out it wasn't me but the candy bar it wanted. Me, I was just standing on a viewpoint on the road to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, enjoying the scenery and my candy bar, and then feeling the brush of the jay's wings on my cheek.

[larryhammer]

Jays are nearly as fearless as mockingbirds. Just ask any outdoors cat.

I've watched a mockingbird chase away a pack of Harris hawks. (Yes, pack — Harris hawks are the only social bird of prey, living in small flocks with an alpha couple, a handful of betas, and gamma immatures.) Two hawks were on a telephone pole, away from the alpha's juveniles, feeding a couple trees away; the mockingbird was dicing and pecking between shoulders, until with the air of "I'm going because I want to, not because you've driven me away," they flew off.

---L.

[mcdolemite.livejournal.com]

This is really, really neat. Reminds me of the time I was sitting on my front porch and saw a pigeon practically explode in a burst of grey feathers as a tiny raptor of some kind (it was smaller than its prey) struck it. The mini-killer, which I'm guessing was a sparrowhawk or chickenhawk, settled on its tattered prey and quickly reduced it to a size where it was able to fly up onto a branch with it.

It was the afternoon of my last birthday. I put down the book I'd been reading and sat there, bemused, sipping genuine Kentucky moonshine (a present from Sunshine, whose uncle's make stuff that's actually safe to drink), while feathers and pigeon parts rained down about twenty feet away.