She Shall Be Released!

Liam arrived from Morgantown about dinnertime on Saturday, November 23 for his Thanksgiving break. He had a well-aerated cardboard carrier with him. And in that carrier was precious cargo: the redtail, coming home. All that care and medication and rehab had paid off and she was ready for release! He'd picked her up at Cheat Lake Animal Hospital that afternoon. I couldn't believe how smoothly this was all working out. 

The night turned wet and bone-chillingly cold, with rain changing to wet snow. I was happy that our mighty redtail was in our protected basement and not facing a night like that outside. I'm sure she didn't love being in a box, but I comforted myself by thinking about the 30 days she might spend in springtime, lying over her eggs. She'd be fine overnight, resting on soft toweling. 

Better there than in a freezing rain.

I'd been giving my Jemima book talk to Master Naturalists at the New River Gorge in West Virginia Friday evening. It was a blast. Stayed overnight at Opossum Creek Resort. Saturday morning, I took a last long hike with Curtis along the Fern Creek/Endless Wall trail (fabulous!) and headed home at midday. We hit the grocery store on my 3 hour drive home, and I proceeded to go totally Martha Stewart. Knowing that you're going to release a redtail the next morning is cause for celebration. Saturday evening, I cooked like mad, making kits for a couple of gouda and broccoli quiches, arugula salad and the piece de resistence, a persimmon custard pie. All to be assembled and baked on Release Morning, bright and early. 

I invited a few friends who'd been especially involved in her story. Tanya and Shila, who'd provided moral support. Chris, who drove her to Morgantown, took the first shift carrying her box out to the meadow where she had pinned me down a month earlier.

Liam took over as we neared the hayfield.

He set the carrier down in the middle of the open field. We wanted to give her room to fly, and we wanted to have her in view for as long as possible.

I very carefully opened the carrier, and she sat back and considered her situation for several minutes. 

We were all in a wide circle around her, our iPhone cameras at the ready. 

She didn't like that, so we pulled back a bit more. I used my 300 mm telephoto for these shots. 

Man, she looked beautiful, just ablaze with life. 

I tiptoed closer to check on her and she woke up and began to consider using the sudden space over her head. Shila was lucky to be standing directly in front of her when she finally took off, and professional photographer in her kicked in as she kept the camera rock-steady on the bird flying right at her face. She had set it to slow motion to capture the wing action and the pure magic of something we knew would spool out all too quickly. Well done, Shila!!

My real-time video, which Blogger will not accept, captured our heroine taking umbrage at my quick peek, and getting the heck out of that box, that meadow full of people, the whole scene. She was gone, brother, gone. Strong and beautiful and gone.  

She landed a few hundred yards away, in the woods, and roused her feathers a couple of times. Then she zigzagged gracefully through the trees, turning on her side once to make a narrow passage, and headed for Dean's Fork, where I bet she took a cold soaking bath to clean those soiled feathers. 

We have released the hawk! She lives to fly another day, to eat rabbits and refurbish her nest and raise some more hawks!  We high-fived and smiled fit to split our faces. Now we feast!  She'd been feasting for almost a month; this bird that came in at 2.4 lb. was now tipping the scales at 2.75 lb (1250 gm). Ack. That's a lotta hawk!

We repaired to the warm kitchen, where we filled up on delicious homemade things. It was a fine, fine morning, a great day with good friends. Part of me is still flying with that huge, ornery, gorgeous, terrifying, totally worth it redtail. 

Cue The Roches singing, "Persimmon Custard Pie...." in three part harmony

If you have enjoyed this multi-part story, please send your thanks to the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia, a small but mighty clinic in Morgantown, WV, with the best vets and volunteers you could find. They took in more than 400 creatures this season. Jesse Fallon and his devoted volunteers do this on their own time. He's a hard-working small animal veterinarian who cares about all wild things, and knows just what to do to heal them.

Donate here, please. 

Thank you!!!

I've Got the Hawk and the Hawk's Got Me

As I ran, I repeated: Boltcutters. Cat carrier. Towels. Gloves. Boltcutters. Cat carrier. Towels. Gloves. Boltcutters. Cat carrier. Towels. Gloves.

I didn't want to forget anything. But first to find boltcutters. Did we have them? I'd need them. 

I scuttled around the garage, looking in the dim recesses for anything that might cut double-strand barbed wire. Pruners weren't gonna do it. And there on the wall, hanging from a nail, a brand-new pair of wire cutters. Incredible. Tag still on them, still zip tied so you couldn't use them. OK. Damn. I had boltcutters. Sure beats a hacksaw (my next option).

Grabbed the cat carrier. It looked small. In too much of a hurry to figure something else out.

Grabbed a couple of towels and my rose-pruning gloves from Foxgloves. I knew they wouldn't be thick enough, but I needed maneuverability. I couldn't handle her in gauntlets, even if I had 'em.

Threw it all in the car and sped out the driveway. Curtis was just returning from his little hunt, tracking me home, and I stopped and opened the door so he could jump in.  We drove right into the hayfield because: Subaru. 

I  unloaded all my stuff and assessed the situation. 

First, I threw a couple towels over her so I could contain her. She tore them off in a lightning flash of talons.

OK, that didn't work. I went to grab her ankles and she struck even faster. Bam! like a snake. That didn't work, either. I covered her head with towels. She threw the towels off. By now she was ready for anything. Man. This hawk. 

I decided I would have to just cut her down off the wire and try to contain her afterward. Two cuts and she was on the ground, on the other side of the fence from me. 

She was so shocked to no longer be hanging that I managed to throw towels on her again and sort of semi-bundle her up and feed her through the wire to my side. I wasn't about to try to get that section of wire out of her patagium; she could just wear it until she got into surgery. 

I knew I had to contain her for both our safety. I lifted her and took one photo before all the fun started. She was simply monstrous! In retrospect, I should have headed for home right then.

I started to put her head-first into the cat carrier until I realized that it was a horribly small space and that wouldn't be right. I didn't think I could even close the door! This was one HUGE redtail. 

So, against my better judgement, I backed her out of the carrier. Thinking on it, I probably should have left her in it, headfirst, for transport, open door or no. Yeah, that would have been the smart thing to do, but I wanted to do the kind thing.

Painstakingly, I backed her out. And when her head came free and she could see what was going on, she nailed me. Her foot clenched on my right index and middle finger, and bore down with a viselike grip that took my breath away. 

The glove helped, but it didn't help as much as I'd have liked.

I was now in a most curious position. I was squatting in a hayfield, out of sight of the road, and even my car was out of sight, thanks to a rise in the field. 

I was in a lot of pain. My hand was pinned by a very angry hawk. Trying to loosen her talons with my left hand only made her bear down harder. I knew that would be the case, but you try anyway. I thought, "Right index finger. Who needs that?" I allowed myself a humorless chuckle, but the gravity of my situation was not lost on me.

I knew that she could maintain this grip for hours. Well @#$#@$#. What do I do now? I can't walk with a hawk dangling from my hand. I can't do anything with a hawk locked onto my hand.  I couldn't drive or walk or crawl or do anything but pray she'd let me go.  Curtis was waiting in the car, and I was not about to get in the car with my precious dog and a flapping, unsecured hawk! What a mess that would be. I couldn't have driven it anyway!

The only thing that I could think to do was to face completely away from her and get my body and face as far away from her as possible. I curled up in the grass, my captive arm extended, and tried to forget that I was utterly helpless. I hoped the hawk would forget that I was there and relax her grip.

It was unholy strong.

And ever so slowly, she did let up. Moving like a slug, I grasped the fingertip of the trapped glove with my left hand, and started to wiggle and back my smashed fingers out of it. Thank God I'd been wearing gloves. 

My thoroughly dented but unhurt index finger. Note that she still has a death grip on the glove!

Finally, I was free, sort of. I wadded toweling around both of her wicked feet and picked her up by her feet. This should have been a one-handed maneuver, but because I was afraid she'd foot me again, there was so much toweling in the way that I had to hold the great wad around her feet with both hands. So off we went to walk the half mile home, me holding the towel-wadded hawk aloft like some kind of medieval standard. My mind was racing. What was I going to do with her when I got home? Both my hands were fully engaged. I couldn't open the basement or garage doors, because they have doorknobs, and I have yet to figure out how to open a doorknob with my foot or knee. 

As I walked up the sidewalk I saw that in my hurry, I had failed to close the main house door. And the glass storm door had a lever on it! Maybe I could get inside! 

No dice opening it with my knee or elbow. Can't be done, at least not while holding a hawk. The only appendage I had available was my chin. I have a substantial chin. Bill always said our kids owe their chins to me, since he didn't have one. My giant chin X his receding chin= normal-chinned offspring. Warily, I leaned down, holding the angry bird as far away from my face as I could, which isn't far enough. I depressed and pulled the door lever with my chin, and after a few tries was able to hook my right toe on the bottom of the barely-opened door and open it enough to admit me and my furious bundle of feathers and talons. OK. I was inside, in an enclosed space with an angry hawk. At least she wouldn't be able to get away from me while badly injured, which were the stakes out in the middle of that hayfield. 

I tottered down the basement steps, holding the hawk high. Kicked the lid off a large, blessedly empty Rubbermaid tub. Lowered the hawk and all her toweling into the tub. Grabbed the lid and latched it on. Then, and only then, did I exhale. 

Better times are coming, my love. I promise you.

And now a word from your blogger. I decided to post this on Thanksgiving because I am feeling very grateful  for all that I have been given: an interesting life in a beautiful place; the ability to share it here, with photos; and the best, sweetest, most thoughtful readers anyone could ask for. I create multi-part cliff-hangers not to torture or tease you, but because it takes me most of a day to do each one. I write them for you, and I write them for me, because making them helps me put together and process the things that happen to me as I wander through this world. Sometimes you can't grasp the gravity of a thing until you think about it long enough to wrap it up and present it to others. Knowing what is special, unrepeatable and flabbergasting; thinking outside the box of assumption; drawing connecting lines of significance, is a skill I am developing.

Nearly every day, I get shot through by bolts of grace and wonder and a kind of spiritual exaltation that I can only find outdoors, in the company of wild things. I feel my connection to birds and animals deepening and expanding into orbitals that have nothing to do with coincidence; that seem somehow ordained; and stumbling upon this hawk on an ordinary gray Friday and being charged with her rescue (and gifted with her story) is just another instance of that expansion. I don't take these bolts of grace for granted. I believe they seek me out, like those people who just seem to attract lightning. I get struck like a tentpole. It's not fun. It's hard.  Each time it happens I panic and think why me? and what am I supposed to do here? and sometimes ow, ow, ow!! even as a much older voice inside me whispers, 

"You know what to do here." 

Happy Thanksgiving. Read to your babies**, and help the wild things.

**I love you, Agnes!

Once Upon a Fenceline

I find a lot of things when I'm out walking. Pretty leaves, frost flowers, box turtles, scat...I read the book of the forest. 

Some of the things I find are beautiful, and some are ghastly. I came upon this bit of animal on October 25, 2019. It's the leg of a white-tailed deer who got hung up in barbed wire in a hayfield about a half-mile from my door. 

The wires all converge in a deadly star, a Union Jack pattern, on the severed leg of the hapless deer. The flesh on it was still moist and pliable. This had happened last night.

The ground beneath is leafless, kicked white, down to the clay. I gazed at this scene, at the splayed toes of the deer, and felt in a great rush all the agony and terror of the animal being free and leaping and then, in one miscalculation, instantly caught and doomed.

Last night, I'd been kept up by coyotes singing and yipping. I knew they had happened upon something big. I listened in the dark and wondered who might be the object of their attention. I was glad to be inside. The woods is a different place at night.

Well, what they were singing about was here in my hand. They were setting this deer free in the only way they could. I was grateful that we now have packs of coyotes in Ohio; that there were social canids big and skilled enough to end this animal's suffering--even to sever its leg and drag it down the hill to be eaten. No trace of it remained, save for a random bone fragment that I heard Curtis crunch down as he inspected the catbriar patch just down from the fence. Yes, a pack of coyotes can make a large whitetail disappear overnight. I've seen it done.

The splayed hoof was eloquent in its silence, speaking of the wire's cruel and ever-tightening grip. I was stunned and very, very grateful I hadn't been the one to come upon the struggling deer, for that is something I could not have let run its course.  I would have had to find someone to kill it as humanely as possible.  Instead, Nature took her course, and the coyotes feasted. I'd heard their song of death and satiation, the song that raised the hair on my arms in the dark. 

We walked on, me silent and absorbed, Curtis ebullient and enthusiastic. What a neat find for a dog to unravel! I wished I could feel that way about it, but I was stumbling on empathy and sorrow. 

It was a soft gray day, and until we found the dangling leg, it had been the kind of day when you don't expect much to happen. I let Curtis snoop around in the grass and composed photos in a desultory way, thinking about that deer and the rotten way it had to die. There are cattle behind that old fence; you don't just go tearing it down, as was later suggested to me, without wreaking havoc on the landowners. Clearing around it and flagging each wire so the animals can see it, as has also been suggested to me, would be the work of a lifetime, and I don't have that kind of time. There are miles of such fence all around these fields. It lies in wait. Sometimes it snags something.

It is easy to suggest such things when you are sitting comfortably, pecking at your keyboard hundreds  or thousands of miles away. It is much harder to go out and do those things.  I am the one who lives with this fence. I decided  as I tramped along that I would have to walk it as often as I could.

We turned around. I heard crows cawing, the harsh rough crawwww call that says they have something. I ran to a hedgerow running at right angles to the deadly fence and came up the hill under its cover, hoping perhaps to see something snooping around the fresh kill site. 

The leg was untouched. The crows flapped off. The sky was quiet. 

And a hundred feet farther on toward my house, I heard a soft "flup."

It was the sound a manila folder makes when it falls to the floor. It was not an impressive sound, but it stopped me in my tracks.

It was the sound made by the wing of a red-tailed hawk, opening suddenly against briars. A red-tailed hawk, hanging helplessly on barbed wire. I had probably walked right by her on the way out. That time, she hadn't opened her wing.

The cascade of words and oaths and silent cries and prayers that happened inside my skull at the moment I found the hawk could never be put into type. "Sweet baby Jesus!!!" was one thing I said.  And "Oh sweetheart. I have to get you off this fence!!!" was another. The rest was incoherent, panicked, profane because I was alone and here was this hawk who needed me like nothing had ever needed me before, save perhaps crawler Liam when he choked on a Goldfish cracker and I ripped him out of his high chair without even unbuckling the seat belt whoooosh and he was up in the air over my head upside down and the cracker fell out. It was like that. Pure adrenaline and horror and just do it, all colliding at once.

I knew I couldn't untangle her. I couldn't even touch her without gloves.  I'd have to find a way to cut the wire. "Stay here. Don't struggle. I'll be back. I will get you off that fence."  I broke into a run and started the half-mile home, glad I could run in hiking boots, glad I could run at all. What I'd planned for my day had changed.

New Year's Walk

No matter what the weather, we go out in nature on New Year's Day. Often we'll go birding. Well, we're always birding.

This year we chose a good hike down Dean's Fork. The added attraction is that we can get there from our front door. I love a hike that starts and ends at the front door. It makes me feel like the richest person in the world, to have a good hike I can take that doesn't require a car ride first.

My gosh, Liam's catching his dad, 6'1" and showing no signs of stopping; growing like he was paid to grow. In this photo, he reminds me so much of Bill, but in vanilla--the build, the stance, the tilt of the head, but also the expression. 

Throwback to about 1989, and why he reminds me of his dad:

All hail genetics! Two lanky peas in a pod.

New Year's Day, 2017--It was time to get little Chet Baker out for a good hike!

There were premises to be patrolled, and Offisa Pupp was on duty, crusin' around in the black and white. 

When Phoebe, Corey and Liam are together, they play like the overgrown kids they are. 

Race to the big rock! Chet always gets up there hisself. Sometimes he gets a lift before he even tries.

We have years of photos of the kids and dog on this rock.

It's so natural and easy to add a fourth guy to the mix. 

For at least four years, I've been quietly cussing at several huge wads of Tyvek house wrap that washed down this stream in a flood. Who knows where they came from? But they were clearly here to stay, non-degrading, and defacing a beautiful run for good. Getting that stuff out of there was something I probably couldn't handle myself. And 99% of the time, it's just me and Chet here.

Bill went down to see if there was anything he could do about it.

And Corey was right behind.

Hauling on the heavy plastic, weighted by years of sediment and gravel, it wasn't long before Corey slipped, and one boot went in the creek.

Laughing and completely unfazed despite freezing water, a cold day, and miles to walk home, he took that opportunity to dunk the other boot. Might as well be symmetrically uncomfortable, and more effective at the job.

Never a word of complaint escaped him as he strained and pulled and got that awful stuff out of frigid Dean's Fork.

He had to use his pocketknife to free the last bit, but soon he was hauling it out and up onto the roadbed. I thought of all the surprised crawfish.

And Dean's Fork was a little muddied, but whole again after years. What a gift to give to this place, that gives so much to us! I now smile broadly whenever I walk by this passage, that used to elicit a heavy sigh.

The Eco-Avengers, posing with the carcass of the nasty old Tyvek they have slain. I'll drive down in the old Subaru and lash it to the cargo carrier, bring it home and figure out how to dispose of it when things dry out a bit.

But wait, there was more.  Right in a part of the stream that catches the afternoon skylight so beautifully, there was another skein of Tyvek. There's always more garbage. Corey to the rescue, scrambling down the embankment!

 Phoebs gave him a hand on the last leg. These slopes are steep, all-fours crawling a lot of the time.

We weighted the second wad of Tyvek with rocks, left it by the side of the road for me to pick up later, and continued on our New Year's walk, Corey in cold wet boots, but in heaven too, out in nature with his best gal. I was working on another little portrait of them, trying to work the dash of red into the composition, when Phoebe spotted something!

Two redtails circled over. There are a few reasons why there would be redtails at this particular time and place.

First, this is where a number of area hunters come to dump their deer carcasses over the embankment. We found remains of six deer, one less than a day dead. 

Deplorable, perhaps, but the coy-wolves, bobcats, foxes, opossums and redtails don't think so. It's a de facto feeding station for area predators.

Another reason for the sudden appearance of redtails might be Dear Old Dod, smiling down on a love so true.

Sending a message out of the blue, him and Ida, too. 

Never count magic out of the mix.

Seeing Ellen

I've had to walk a lot lately. I always have to walk just as hunting season comes on. It's the short days, the elusive light, the coming of the long dark. It's everything. 

And everything is so beautiful. 

I've got a talisman tree that, by some incredible stroke of provenance, actually lives on the farthest east corner of our 80 acre property. It's the sister oak to the one who used to mark our driveway. 

And it is magnificent. I stand beneath it and gloat that nobody can cut it down but us, and we aren't going to cut it down, ever. There's a little red barn we don't own right near it, and it makes for some lovely photos, especially at sunrise.

Just north of it are the Three Graces, Auxiliary. They're all tulips, and they do a graceful dance against the rising sun. There's sometimes a redtail we call James perched in the tallest one.

If you click on this to embiggen it you will see the light in his eye.

 I see him as I head for my morning place, where yesterday I watched a seven-point buck taking corn. The way the sun heaves up through the forest soothes me.

The last red maple leaves are leaving their tree-mothers.

And when the sun is just right, I can see our tower top glinting on the return trip. Supermoon riding high. You'll have to click to see the tower, left of the Graces.

I have been missing Ellen, not that I'd be seeing her in the yard yet; she usually came in December and January for the little corn handouts I gave. I just miss knowing she's around, miss her crooked little face and the way she used to run with her head down and tilted over to the right.

On November 14, I saw a wee button buck tiptoeing into the yard who looked awfully familiar. 

I took in his details, smiling widely.

A pinkish nose. Hmm. That's interesting!

White blazes between his toes: check. 

A bit of asymmetry about his face: check.

Odd set to the ears: check.

There was just something about him. And I saw Ellen looking back at me.

He was young, and he was apparently alone, which also argued that he might be Ellen's child. He should still be with his mother, unless his mother has been murdered.

Of course, I didn't know if I'd ever see him again, bow season being in full swing and gun season coming right up. Uch, how I hate that immutable fact of life, that some of my neighbors are going to get gunned down every year. The way Ellen beat the odds for nine years made me love her all the more.

Four days later, I saw him again. I was able to ascertain that yes, his left eye seemed larger, wider and differently set than his right. There's definitely an asymmetry going on in his face. This was something I'd noticed the first time I saw him, but wasn't sure about. 

 

There were the white flames between his toes. It was Pinky, named for his pink nose.

But this time, he wasn't alone.

Now I had seen Ellen once over the summer of 2016, when fawns were still spotty, and to my amazement my elderly friend had not one but two spotty fawns with her. She'd always had singletons before, but even old eggs divide. Incredible. Say what you want about her, but Ellen was a highly fit individual, reproducing well into her golden years, with twins at 9!

I love this photo from my last live photo session with her in May 2016, with a cardinal singing on the snag overhead; her crooked ears...she, unbeknownst to me, gestating two fawns!

A little doe fawn ducked her head to the right and ran awkwardly a few yards, in a manner so reminiscent of Ellen I laughed out loud.

She stopped, as does will, and looked back over her shoulder at me. 

If this is Pinky's sister, she's a looker. So much white, with big rings around her eyes (Pinky has those, too); a big white bib, and best of all, flashy white backs to her forelegs! I decided to call her Flag, after Jody's pet in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling. A formative book if ever there were one.

Am I sentimental about deer? Oh yes. Did reading The Yearling five times as a kid influence how I feel about them? Undoubtedly. I like knowing deer as individuals. I love to notice the little things (white leg linings) that set them apart from the herd. It's a privilege to know them. 

And, having noticed those little things, you can't un-notice them. Look at those eyerings! Those legs!

Flag paused and looked over her shoulder at me, Liam's willow tree making a golden cataract in the foreground. 

Be careful, kids, without your wise and durable little mother to guide you through this hunting season, and next, and next. Flag, watch out for those ten-point bucks. Pinky, I hope I get to see you grow antlers next year. 

Maybe you'll be as beautiful as Beck, Ellen's masterpiece, her son from 2013. 

You don't have Ellen here to tell you where to find a little handout of corn, the way Beck did, but I think you'll figure it out. 

It comforts me, seeing Ellen again, seeing her genes and spirit and slightly crooked face again in her children. I'm leaning into the pain, and being pleasantly surprised at the gifts that come as a result.