Hawk

A hawk regularly perches in the top of a redwood tree. I know the hawk has quite a good view of the pasture where there are plenty of gophers and other rodents. Sometimes there’s a mate in a nearby tree.
Last Saturday, when I saw this visitor, I got out the field scope and watched him. And he watched me. Then I got my camera out and fitted it to the field scope and took the picture below. Without the magnification added by the eyepiece, the hawk isn’t as large in the picture as it was for me just using the scope. I could see much better detail with the scope. Also, I had to manually focus the scope and match it with the camera, which was awkward. This picture was the only one of six that was reasonably in focus.

This is a red-tail hawk. His chest is very white and his head and back a dark grey. I’m not a birder nor a bird photographer but I like hawks. In high school, Brother Giles who taught me French freshman year was a falconer and he kept a hawk tied to a perch in the courtyard.

Finally, proving that almost everything on Shakespeare has been written, and moreover finds its way to the Internet, I found ‘The Hawks of Shakespeare‘, which was part of “The Birds of Shakespeare” by J.E. Harting, published in 1866.

“When I bestride him I soar, I am a hawk. “

Henry V., Act iii. Scene 7.

To see a hawk is to imagine being one, if only for a moment.