Anyone who has ever stopped to watch a hawk in flight will know that this is one of the natural world’s most elegant phenomena. – John Burnside
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The Red-Tail Dance
A shrill keeeer–keeeer pierces the spring sky.
Two large birds circle high above.
Suddenly, one rises vertically above the other.
Closing its wings, it then topples downward, accelerating towards the ground.
Its wings then open and it rises again to repeat this aerial display.
Soon grabbing hold of one another, claw to claw, they fall spiraling towards the earth in a poetic embrace.
Releasing each other, these mates glide together with their feet extended, forever…
jdeLap
The mating ritual of the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), which occurs each spring, is poetry in flight. I can pause for long moments and watch this beautiful display until these wonderful birds soar from view. For a moment, I am carried away with them in this dance of new life, thankful for spring and the gift of rebirth that has been given to us for millennia.
In a chapter of my life now past, I worked near the local airport and enjoyed watching a red-tailed hawk as it hunted in the vacant fields outside my office window. So much so that I never want to see this slice of urban wild developed. The hawk often perched on a light stanchion, which gave it a good view of the open fields and the voles that inhabited the grassy stubble. Suddenly taking flight, it would pounce on its prey. I know that all did not end well for the vole, but it was simply the reality of nature and its cycle of birth and death.
When on the ground, I am always in awe of the size of this hawk and they are equally as impressive in flight. They can reach up to 22 inches long and have a wingspan of up to 56 inches. Their wingspan is just a foot shorter than I am tall. Standing side by side, I could touch the top of this hawk’s head, which with bill can reach close to 3 ½ inches long. Their sharp bill, used for tearing apart their prey, can be over an inch long in the adult and have a frightening downward turn at the end. Their sharp talons, the hooked claws on all birds of prey, help insure that their meal won’t escape. If I am prey, none of these things give me comfort.
The red-tail is our most common buteo, a genus of large, wide-winged, short-tailed soaring hawks. Its territory includes the entire continental U.S., Canada, Alaska, and Mexico, with Indiana being well within its year-around range. Color variations exist across its territory but the most common diagnostic marking is the rufous or red tail of the adults. Their prey includes voles, mice, birds, snakes, and insects, but they will take larger mammals such as rabbits and squirrels. Although some 40 years ago, I still remember seeing a red-tail take a pigeon on the roof of a downtown building. The hapless bird was quickly dispatched and then then carried to a nearby tree. This moment, clearly etched in my mind, was the first time I had ever witnessed a hawk kill that close and I recall the primordial feeling that came over me.
No matter, when or where I see these birds, I am always in awe of this powerful raptor. Maybe they are being harassed by smaller birds, feathered fighter pilots attempting to chase the enemy from the field. I am never quite sure who I want to win the battle but the hawk usually retreats rather than put up a fight. Or, I may see this beautiful bird sitting on a post, closely observing an open field, keeping an eye out for its next meal. But, I always listen for that wheezy keeeeer in the spring as these hawks soar above the earth, hopeful that I will once again witness poetry in the sky.
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, verse 52
Photo Courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources