El Paso: A Hawk Swooped In

Hawk, Memorial Park, El Paso, Texas. August 2017.

August 2017


I was on my way to the Tumblewords Project at the library in Memorial Park. Beau Jocque was playing to me.

Through the top of my windshield, a dark shape swooped down and across the road and up to a tree on the left side of the road. I pulled over. Got my camera out.

It was a very large hawk. It landed on an outer branch toward the tree top, and peered down into the greenery.

Hawk, Memorial Park, El Paso, Texas. August 2017.

It hulked there. Like a member of local royalty who barged into the home of a subject, seeing what he might take for himself, because he could.

-- Or was that the story at all? The photo below suggests that .... maybe .... that was actually its home? I saw a small bird fly out from the tree, following the hawk. But in the photo above, I see an extended wing inside the branches and another bird flying away.

Hawk, Memorial Park, El Paso, Texas. August 2017.

I snatched a bit of video, which I unfortunately ended before he made his move and was subsequently chased out of by one of the diminutive owners of that small home.

So the mystery remains.

Colorado: Longmont: An Osprey Nest

Osprey nest by Twin Peaks Golf Course, Ninth Street, Longmont, CO. May 2016.

When we humans are good, we are very very good.

It gladdens my heart when I see examples of people creating a safe space for us to co-exist with other wildlife.**

This osprey nest in Longmont is an example.  It's on Ninth Street by the Twin Peaks Golf Course.

Another osprey nest in Longmont - at the Boulder County Fairgrounds - is the center of rapt(or) attention via webcam. Indeed, in 2015, the "ratings" soared when two female ospreys battled it out over a man.

Osprey nest by Twin Peaks Golf Course, Ninth Street, Longmont, CO. May 2016.

**Disclosure: I am not a proponent of the current fashion in feral cat management, but that's a conversation for some other day and maybe some other forum.