Sightings 2

I sat down on the car guard-rail and watched them for a long time. I thanked them for being there, for being wild, for keeping the wild on Bernal Hill. These birds are becoming familiar, I’ve seen them often. They are beautiful browns and greys with stripes and spots on the underneath of their wings and tails with patterns of grey and white, dark grey and black; but when they fly in direct sunlight their tails turn glowing red.

After awhile the cold forced me to head back down the spiral road, the wind blasting me as I turned southwest. I had to push against the wind to keep moving forward, but the sun was starting to shine through the dense grey fog clouds, bright and glowing. The sky past Diamond Hill was shrouded completely in this beautiful light and in spite of the wind, the world seemed calm and quiet.

Continuing downhill, I curved towards the north and the force of the wind pushed me from behind again making me walk faster. I descended further and looking up, I glimpsed the hawks to my right. They were flying toward me from what was now the other side of the hill. They disappeared behind the steep crest, suddenly reappearing above me flying directly into the full force of the wind. They hung in the air, the full force of the wind against them, hovering. Then dropped, vertically, found an easier pocket of air, and flew directly above me.

I got a very good look at their feather patterns. As their twin shadows glided past mine on the pavement, I really regretted not having my camera.

They started calling back and forth, making a screeching cry over, and over, loud even against the noise of the strong wind: Screee, Screee, Screee…

They carried on some kind of conversation with this, then flew past me up the hill to the grove of cypress trees I had passed a few minutes earlier, and disappeared in the dark green branches.

I’ve never heard these hawks speak before; they had always been silent. This was a wonderful experience.

4. April 30, 2011
I returned to Bernal Hill it was just as foggy and windy as two days before, but this time I had my camera. The male hawk was perched in the same tree at the top of the hill. He posed there while I took several pictures then he took off heading southwest. I followed him with my camera as far as I could and then followed on foot hoping to see him again. I used these pictures for the poster design and for this site.

5. May 23, 2012
I see the hawks a lot now, most of times I walk on the hill. My relationship with nature and the wild of Bernal Hill Park and the Red-tail Hawks continues to be a wonderful sustaining source of creativity, creative practice and collaboration.