CROW GETS CHUFFED

I was out there this fine early evening finishing up with splitting firewood (what else? actually, I also earlier transplanted about 500 onion sandwiches worth of red and white onions) when I heard Dr. Crow up there atop his pole, where he likes to make random stops during the day to gather key information on general Brady activities (such as onion planting) and where at evening he always makes his final stop to survey his vast realms, make sure everything is buttoned down for the night just the way he likes it, before winging off to his forest penthouse.

But the sound I was hearing from the good doctor was not his usual raucous yet commanding note; it was more like a caHOINK, caHOINK, caHOINK, caHOINK, ongoing at regular deep-breath intervals. Finally I looked up and shouted to the dark silhouette up there: “Whadda you, been hangin’ around with pigs or sumthin?” (We’re completely informal amongst ourselves up here on the mountain.) But then my eyes focused and it wasn’t Crow I was talking to, it was a much bigger silhouette, in fact it was a huge pinecone of feathers up there like I’d never seen, going caHOINK, caHOINK, caHOINK, then my eyes focused more and I saw the scimitar beak: it was Master Hawk, standing austerely silent in his humungifying pineconeness. So where were all the caHOINKs coming from?

Then I saw Hawk turn and look down like a king at a peasant, and out from behind the pole, hopping mad on the wires below Hawk, came Crow, caHOINKing up at the usurper of his rightful place, trying to be annoying enough to get Hawk to take wing, because then Crow would have the advantage and could chase him away. Hard to believe, but in airborne tangles, floppy-flying Crow is more agile; but when sitting there like that in Crow’s fave spot (and right at Realm surveying time, no less!) Hawk had the upper wing-- all he had to do was put on his impressive featherbristle show to double his size, and it was working.

Crow would be just about to attack but then think better of it, honing his razor beak overandover on the wire and mumbling Ok, Ok, this time I really mean it, you better watch out, and then a little bit of a Crow feint and those huge bristly wings up there would instantly spread their WHOA! shadow and Crow would have second thoughts a fourth time and then a tenth (birds have lots of time for this kind of stuff). Finally Crow cawed The Hell with This and flew away with a huffy wingbeat yelling an angry hacking sound you could tell he was really pissed, he never flies that straight or with that intensity, grumbling all the way to his penthouse.

Hawk savored his victory, remaining proudly bristly as he surveyed HIS realm, which interestingly included one strange featherless biped, engaged in an odd activity involving what appeared to be segments of trees.

Hawk takes off -
leans into air
like mind into thought

BRADY TALKS HAWK

These Spring days, the hawks grace the air in high blue romance, the males gliding, squealing and whirling around demurely spiraling but attentive females, the way love soars in wide-winged feathered beings.

Speaking of being, while I was out splitting wood late yesterday afternoon (after double-digging a new garden bed and transplanting some overgrown potted herbs into the soil) I heard a hawk who, at the end of his own days' labors, was majestying atop a pole over by the road, scanning his vast hawkdom and singing his heart out for love, like a feathered troubador. Maybe I was prompted by my exchange in Warbler the other day, but I figured I might as well see if I could get the big feathered being to converse, so I gave Hawk a try.

To anyone acquainted with it, Hawk is a difficult language; Warbler is a lyric breeze in comparison. Hawks work over long distances, so they start off piercingly loud (and far-reaching) at a high pitch and then go higher, the note thinning yet widening somehow, with an even higher-pitched and very difficult vibrato curlicue added at the end. The note is hard, but the vibrato is really tough, not only because the note goes so high and then flattens and widens, but because while whistling that note you have no oral room to move, so have to make the vibrato with your diaphragm, which is at counterpurposes to whistling, to get the whole thing just right.

Hawks have been doing it all their lives, but I just started, so I gave it a couple of feeble tries and garnered no attention other than what might have been a hawkish chuckle. After a while, though, I at least got into the vibrato ballpark, and my general pronunciation didn't seem too bad, but the hawk, who, if I was getting it right, should be needle-eyeing me as a competitor, instead turned and looked at me funny, pulling his head back from his shoulders, like 'What the-- Who the hell-- Was that noise YOU?' Must have been my accent. I tried a few more times, but he could take no more and flew away-- shaking his head, if I'm not mistaken. I tried to whistle my apologies in accented Hawk, but he did not respond.

In further proof of my failure at mastering the wide-winged language, not a single female hawk cruised by to check out this cool dude with the interesting east coast accent. A good thing, too; I wasn't feeling the slightest tinge of feathered romance. Which lack, now that I think about it, probably doomed my effort from the start.

Made wood chopping kind of high and airy, though.

MAJESTIC

A few mornings ago when Zoom and I were driving back upmountain in the van, we watched a hawk close-up as it rode the air in place just off to the left in front of us, the wind sliding fast and muscular up the mountain, the hawk just hanging there close above the road as the air clear-silvered its massive way on up and over, hawk easily riding those streaming majestic smooth-rippled torrents, those wings a magnificent embodiment of all that answers to the wind, taut airstream body suspended from tawny featherfingered wings widespread - suddenly out of those sleek feathers came a long golden talon that reached up and scratched real good behind the ear where it must have itched like crazy it don't matter where you are or what you're doin when you get an itch, hawk was just literally hangin out after all, figuratively speakin, leanin on the lamppost of the air, just wingin it, air doin most of the work, hawk in fact nothin much to do otherwise but what's natural, nothin majestic about an itchy ear, we cracked up Zoom and I...