A Luminous Halo

"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end." --Virginia Woolf

My Photo
Name:
Location: Springfield, Massachusetts, United States

Smith ’69, Purdue ’75. Anarchist; agnostic. Writer. Steward of the Pascal Emory house, an 1871 Second-Empire Victorian; of Sylvie, a 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL; and of Taz, a purebred Cockador who sets the standard for her breed. Happy enough for the present in Massachusetts, but always looking East.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Sated Hawk

This morning when I looked out my kitchen window, this big fellow was staring back at me. He looks to me like a Cooper's hawk: at least the size of a big crow, with a barred breast and banded tail. He was perched at eye level on a perfectly horizontal dead branch, staring straight ahead. Below him on the trash can lid, a gray squirrel was jumping around, making his presence pretty obvious.

I know that these hawks can and do take squirrels, although their usual fare is feeder birds. A good-sized squirrel is going to be more of a hassle than a chickadee, for sure. Still, I think it a bit odd that the squirrel was so bold and the hawk so oblivious. Maybe the big guy was full. Or maybe, since it was Sunday, he was calling a truce.

Labels: ,