I have been a birder since high school, long before I took my first ornithology class in college for my biology degree. Yes, I mean bird watching. I’m like a ferret on crack for anything winged and flying near me. Yes, this is the same person that writes Urban Fantasy featuring Anita Blake and Meredith (Merry) Gentry. My world is not all zombies, vampires, and wereanimals, thank you, or even fairy princesses that happen to be private detectives. It’s not even just violence and sex, or is that sex and violence, sometimes I forget which order they go in. Hmm . . .
I hear crows calling, and I know that call. There’s a hawk somewhere nearby. Binoculars are sitting right here on my desk, because, yeah. I few seconds of looking near the crows and there it is. A big red-tailed hawk, beautiful bird with a paler than normal golden red tail, some can brick red almost brown, and it’s that rufous tail that gives them their name. It’s probably a female from the size alone, males are smaller. Bluejays and other tinier birds have joined the crows in harassing the hawk. They’re all doing the bird equivalent of, “Get out of our neighborhood, you trouble maker!” Though I suppose it’s more like, “Get out of our neighborhood, you killer!” Red-tails don’t normally take small birds, but they will kill and eat most anything they can catch, if they’re hungry enough. The crows and other birds aren’t taking any chances. The bluejays are even dive bombing the hawk, a few striking it on its shoulders and back, then dashing away. Brave birds, and puzzled hawk as it tries to keep its footing on branches too small for its large taloned feet. When it settles into stillness again if I look away for a moment it’s hard to find it again in the autumn leaves and dead tree branches. It’s remarkably camouflaged for a bird about the size of a toddler.
Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, I’m a birder. *laughs* There is a tradition among birders that the first bird you see on the first day of the new year will be your theme for the year. Some serious birders travel to exotic locations to stack the deck in favor of something exotic for that first bird. I was someplace exotic last year, but I honestly don’t remember my first bird. It maybe the first time in years that I didn’t make a note of it, so getting back to tradition I will be looking for my first bird of the year when I get up tomorrow.
I’ve had years where it was starlings which are all about group communication, and squabbling if you watch them for very long. The hawk has just flown higher on the tree and is sitting so pretty. Maybe my first bird will be the red-tailed hawk and I will have a predatory year where I have to remember to aim at what I want and commit fully to getting it. If a hawk hesitates, or isn’t sure it wants that rabbi, it will miss it’s mark and go hungry. If it misses too many opportunities it will starve. Predators are all about committing fully to your goals. For two, or three years running it wasn’t a bird, because every New Year’s morning there were squirrels playing in the yard, but not a single bird moved until after I’d seen squirrels. They were always in groups of at least three and they were chasing each other, and playing. I finally figured out the message, I was supposed to balance work and play better. This was back when I was doing two big books a year, and basically was a workaholic with very little time for other things. And before someone asks, no the dogs, cat, or domestic animals you keep do not count as your first “bird” of the year. Go outside, see the real world, and find out what it has to teach you.