Look Up, But Look Out - It's Contagious!
By Steve Anderson
You are about to witness one of Nature's great spectacles... |
Once you have arrived at your location and gotten set up, immediately begin the two activities which form the foundation of hawk watching - waiting and looking. (Be sure to bring along your own binoculars and spotting scope. There are limits to sharing, even among the closest of friends.) If you have sufficient patience to wait long enough and possess the stamina to look hard enough, and if the date and time of day are right, and if the wind and weather conditions are favorable, then, and only then, you might get what you came for - a powerful dose of potent medicine. |
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Open wide - your eyes, that is, and try not to blink (your mouth may drop open as a side effect). You are about to witness one of Nature's great spectacles - the autumn migration of Broad-winged Hawks. Panning and scanning the apparently empty sky, you come upon a small dark form barely within range of your scope. You bring the object into sharp focus and are able to determine that it is, indeed, a bird. You watch as the bird lazily and effortlessly circles and climbs. Based on your experience, knowledge, and the familiar and unmistakable feeling in your gut, you know that you have in your sights not just any bird, but a bird of prey. You also know, given the time of year as mid-September, odds are it's a Broad-wing. |
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Within a few seconds the scope's entire field of view is filled with soaring hawks. |
You move your scope ever so slightly to the right - you see another bird. Up, more birds; down, even more. Within a few seconds the scope's entire field of view is filled with soaring hawks. "Whoa!" is your reflexive reaction to the sight. You draw a deep breath and try to compose yourself. You can feel the medicine starting to take effect. One of your cohorts calls out, in a matter of fact tone which belies the sheer excitement of the moment, "I've got a major kettle forming below the cumulus clouds over the old water tower." "I'm on it," you respond. |
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You switch from using the scope to your binoculars, sacrificing magnification for a wider field. Years of practice have taught you how to look away from an area of the sky for a moment and then return almost exactly to it. Finding the spot, you see hawks, a lot of hawks - nothing, in fact, except hawks against a blue-gray background. A third voice is heard - "There are more birds coming in from the right. Hang on, here we go! Are we ready for this, or what!" The fourth member of your group is a relative newcomer who has never really been bitten by the bug. He regards your tales of seeing hundreds, even thousands of hawks in a single day as a mixture of myth, hoax, hyperbole, and wishful thinking. He blurts out, in a tone which is mildly excited but tinged with skepticism and disbelief, "I'm not sure if I'm looking where you guys are looking, but I see birds. I think they're Broad-wings." He's on the brink of catching a severe case of the fever. [ Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 ] |
