Hawkshadow

[eclectic_boy]

I went to the Crum this afternoon to soak up the low-60s sunshine and see how much blooming had occurred there in the past week. Most of the trees are still bare, with only a tiny powdering of buds to indicate that they're waking up. I read some more of Iain Banks' Inversions while on Alligator Rock high above the Creek (is that nickname still used? I mean the outcropping just north of the Science Center, with the wooden steps leading to it).

After half an hour I wandered back along the trail, and stopped to read some more atop a fallen tree. While I was there a shadow swept by, like when a plane passes in front of the Sun. I looked up and there were two... then three, then *five* raptors gliding over the valley. I think they were hawks, though I only saw them as silhouettes. They soared around for five minutes, spending most of their time circling above the rock I had just left---darn---before heading further upcreek.

Comments

[elizaeffect.livejournal.com]

Are you sure they were hawks? Turkey vultures are far more likely to soar in clusters, and there is almost always at least one over the Crum. I've seen six or seven of them on good days. Identifiers include the V-shaped way in which they hold their wings, their ridiculously tiny naked heads (they look almost headless when they fly), and the fact that their wings are dark on the outer surface and light on the inner, so that they look like dark silhouettes until they turn and the sun hits the white bits. (The V-shaped wing pattern makes them tilt and wobble a lot on the edge of a thermal. They're funny to watch.)

Most species of hawk around here are less perfectly-adapted for soaring, hold their wings straight like a small airplane instead of a V, and tend to hunt low to the ground, sitting in trees over meadows and waiting for small creatures to wander by. They have hunting "territories" and don't tend to cluster - except during migration season, I suppose. (It is spring.) The vultures, being carrion eaters, must by nature be nomadic and travel fairly large distances through the day to find a good meal.

[gerbilicious85.livejournal.com]

If they were vultures, good thing they *didn't* circle around the rock while you were sitting on it!