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Saturday and I could have slept in, but I woke up and realized, well, I was awake. I was thinking seriously of trying to go back to sleep, when I heard a noise outside. The first thing I heard was crows. Unhappy crows, after something. After a while you know the sound when they are mobbing something. Then I heard another bird noise. It was a hawk. I heard it crying outside the window. Crying? Yes, crying. It is our second year for an immature red tail hawk to come to our yard in hopes of a meal. I know the wildlife plantings have really brought in the animals, but the young hawks coming to try their luck here is proof that it’s a target rich environment.
I got out of bed and started pulling on clothes. I was no longer trying to be stealthy. My plan was to get a camera and try for some pictures. I was so unsteathly that Jon woke and said, “What? What is it?” I told him. He said he’d get up and help get pictures. Then as I was hopping around the bathroom putting on clothes on the run, I saw the hawk fly by the window. Silhouetted against the gold light of dawn, this huge winged shape. God. God, that was pretty.
Not long after that the crows stopped complaining. I told Jon, “Don’t get up if it’s just for the hawk. I think he’s gone.” Jon was pretty much comatose by the time I got out of the room. I’ve always envied him his ability to fall asleep so very quickly. Not one of my skills. Light sleeper, me.
The hawk was indeed gone. By the time I got the dogs outside, the yard was quiet. Too quiet, as the saying goes. All the small animals and birds were still in hiding. Nothing like something large and predatory going through to make the neighborhood very quiet. There were a few squirrels hiding in the bushes giving alarm calls, and I heard one of our chipmunks in deep cover doing the same, but otherwise you would have thought the only thing we had in our yard was plants.
I’ve seen the hawk a few times before this. Once a flock of small birds alerted me to it, before it flew huge and close by my office windows. I saw it twice more, winging around the yard, tyring it’s luck in the last week and half. It’s a very big red-tail, especially as an immature, so that probably means it’s a girl. Last year’s baby was smaller than the mother so we called him Junior. I don’t know if we’ll see the girl enough to give her a pet name, but we’ll see, or we won’t. Either way, it’s very cool.
So I’m up on one of the few days I could sleep in, typing this to you guys. But I don’t mind. One of the phrases that will get Jon, Darla, and me out on a work day with binoculars or cameras, is, “Hawk’s up.” Which means one of us has seen some sort of hawk. Then we all try and see it, though if I’m on a roll, they know not to interrupt me even for that. Sigh.
Did ten pages yesterday on the Jason book. I thought this book was going to be like MICAH, but it’s more like OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY. What do I mean by that? I thought the book was going to be a small book about Jason’s background, with a small mystery. Instead the book is going to be large, and though we’re getting a lot of Jason’s background, we have a large mystery, and just as OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY gave you a new view of who Edward was, and wasn’t, so, I think, this book will do the same for Jason. I always find it interesting when a character decides it’s time to do something different. Interesting and frustrating, because now I’m looking at my remaining plot points and wondering if any of them are actually going to make it into this book, at all. Oh, well, I just have to trust that Jason knows what he’s doing and where he’s going. Edward did in OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY. Trusting your characters is like trusting your real life friends; they’re your friends and you trust them, because they’re your friends. Jason has been my friend for nearly thirteen years. He’s earned a little trust.