Like a Cat in the Woods

March 2, 2020, couldn't be any more different than March 2 of 2019. Last year, today was a Sunday, and Wendy and I were hosting the biggest birthday music party we could humanly pull off, for Bill. We all knew it would be the last birthday he'd have, and we wanted it to be the best one. And it was. Beloved musicians drove and flew from all over and that man played as if he were possessed, all day and into the night. He said it had been the best day of his life. Now, Bill was given to hyperbole, but we knew he meant it, and that it was true. And why not? His favorite friends were there, playing his favorite music, and everybody was freely showing their love for him. He was playing like the devil had gotten into him. And, of course, it had.

He was on fire, inside and out, and it was beautiful and sweet and terrible to see. Music was his reason for living, and man, did he live all that day, that wonderful day. I'll never forget what he said later, recalling that day. "I swear, I could go, and if there was gonna be music, I'd rise up and play another twelve hours. It means that much to me."

Today was different. It was quiet and cool and drizzly and there was nobody here but me and Curtis. I was thinking about him off and on, thinking about his birthday tomorrow, wondering how to mark it.

The cardinals pippering, the doves rocketing, the goldfinches careening, the yard exploding. A dark blue bullet swooped in, doing an elaborate loop-de-loop with a bird practically as large as he. Though their forms were no more than blurs, I knew it had to be a tiny male sharp-shin chasing a mourning dove. They climbed higher and higher, and the dove turned over in flight and stooped toward the ground, and the sharpie threw out one foot and snagged it like a cocklebur snags your sleeve. And they both tumbled to the ground, head over tail, and everything went silent. 

I grabbed my binoculars and my big camera and slipped downstairs and out the sliding door. I peeped over a rise and there he was, glorious, mantling over the captive dove. A full adult male sharp-shinned hawk, a damned rare bird any more. Oh joy. He will eat today. Much as I love mourning doves, having been mama to three, I wanted this hawk to eat today.

He wanted to fly away, but he couldn't, because he had to kill the dove first. I took two shots and retreated the way I'd come, head down, showing him I meant no harm, that I'd leave him in peace to finish the job. No photo was worth spooking him off his hard-won meal. The thing to do in this delicate situation is to get out of there.

Once inside, I raced up three flights of stairs to the birdwatching tower. The windows were streaked with rain, and I had to shoot at a terrible angle through two panes and rain too, but it was worth it to leave the little hawk in peace.

It may look like he's just loitering around, but he's squeezing that dove for all he's worth. Killing  takes more time than you'd think.

As soon as the dove was subdued, the little hawk tried to take off with it. And it was clear that this was not going to happen. A mourning dove weighs around 4.2 oz. A sharp-shinned hawk weighs around 5 oz. FIVE OUNCES. How does it cram so much fire and life into five ounces of flesh, bone, feather and nerve? Barely, that's how. Sharpies are all fire, all nerve.

Time and again the hawk tried to move his prey, and succeded only in making a couple of feet of headway. It wasn't clear the dove was dead yet, anyway.

 Ack. Are the doves' eyes open? Yep. Hard to watch, but watch I must.

It was interesting to see the predator suddenly vulnerable, now re-cast as prey. The sharpie desperately wanted to get into cover with its catch, knowing that he could himself fall prey out in the open. All it would take would be a passing Cooper's hawk, and he could lose both the dove and his life.

It was an impasse. I was settling in to watch him take his meal from the tower window, hoping he could pull it off without being attacked himself.

Suddenly, the sharpie took off, leaving the dove behind. What the heck? I followed him with my lens to the lone Virginia pine in the backyard.

There he sat and craned his neck, looking concerned. Instinct swung my lens back to where the dove lay.

And I saw with unbelieving eyes the tawny brown reason the sharpie had spooked.

The cat approached softly, stalking, unsure that the dove was really dead. Cats are careful. Cats are not rash.

And when it bent to take the bird in its jaws, the dove's wings stretched out in a last convulsion, a farewell to everything. Almost tenderly, the bobcat gathered the bird up.

Every cat owner has seen their pet with this look on its face. This is mine. Nobody had better try to take it from me.

The beautiful thief glanced around, the dove that had seemed so huge and unwieldy to its original captor, now but a trifle in its jaws.

Mixed emotions, the order of the day. I was heartbroken to see the sharp-shin robbed of such a fine meal, a meal for days. And I was absolutely thrilled to see a bobcat in my yard once again. I hadn't seen one in the yard since Curtis came on the scene. I was delighted to think that bobcats still stalked the margins, watched the feeder action. (And I had just been wondering this morning where the Norway rat who'd suddenly shown up had gone to.) I marveled that the cat came in, likely having seen me out in the yard just minutes earlier. And yet it did. I marveled at everything. I wondered who had sent these incredible things to me. The show goes on, and somehow I'd been here for it.

It turned, as cats will, on a soft pivot

and solemnly bore the dove away for good.

The cat simply melted into the woods and vanished. I have gone through my many bobcat photos but I can't say I recognize this animal.

It was just a bobcat, on a cool drizzly day in March, a day that was much different than this day one year ago. A day for reflection, for grief, for missing someone so special.

How I wish he were still here to see this, to see us. I still don't understand why he had to leave.

But he has melted away, like a cat in the rain-wet woods.

The sharp-shin bent to pick the feathers off his feet, wiped his bill on the pine branch, and flew off down the orchard.

He made another pass at the feeders just before it got too dark to see, but he didn't catch anything.