I Hear a Flock of Geese Outside.

They sound like they're being strangled.

A few weeks back, I saw my first hawk up close.  It was perched on a branch somewhere along the Aqueduct Trail up the hill from where I live.  It was a big beast.  It didn't seem to be in a predatory state of mind.   It just sat there on the branch, unperturbed.

I had seen hawks circling in the air every time I took a drive out of the city.  Now I see them nearly all the year around.  Always from a distance.  They circle the sky looking for prey, but I never see them swoop down for the kill.

Yet here is a great hawk, his grey-brown feathers nearly concealing himself among the bare winter trees.  Someone on the trail had pointed her out.  I was tempted to take photographs of the hawk, but I didn't want it to fly off in aggravation.  The other people on the trail weren't so reluctant.  So I can only describe to you in words and not images what I saw.

Are the hawks well fed from their diurnal prowling?  Are they starving for sustenance?  I can't tell.  Humans aren't among their prey.  I guess they feel we're more than they can peck or trap between their talons.  I've seen seagulls steal off with a hapless fish twitching in their grip.  I never saw a hawk wrangling with some small terrestrial vermin though.  Maybe that's for the best.  The spectacle would probably freak me out.

As for the geese, they're the first source of natural sound I've heard in a while.  My train of thought is often interrupted with the din of a car, truck, a leaf blower (during the fall season), or an obnoxiously grumbling motorcycle engine.  After all that, the geese are a welcome distraction.

The untrained ear does not hear nature's murmurings often, drowned as it is by the intrusive blare of technology.

But I heard a flock of geese outside.  Their honks took a burden off of me for a time.  The toils of the day don't feel as heavy.

More later.

- JJB