Coopernicus is back
Thursday June 07th 2012, 10:50 pm
Filed under: Friends,Wildlife

I was saying to someone just yesterday that I hadn’t seen my hawks in months and I missed them. Rather fiercely, actually. I hoped they were okay. The squirrel population seems to have suddenly gone bonkers–ten at once?!–and a few of the new ones trying to raid whatever they can have looked close to starving. This didn’t help me think the hawks were okay out there. The balance was off.

I moved a chair on the patio to try to thwart the little monsters and I guess it made the perch he needed: later, as if summoned, the male Cooper’s landed on the back of it. It was afternoon. It was not his usual hunting time.

He glanced around the patio a bit because that’s just what you do when you’re a raptor, but mostly he was watching me watching him while I was being fervently grateful he’d come. He’s here! He’s alive! And the ravens didn’t bully him out of his territory after all. Yay!

If a wild thing living free can feel loved, I was giving it my best.

He looked relaxed, and to prove that he fluffed out his chest and head feathers a bit. LookywhatIcando.

You sweet showoff you. So gorgeous.

We enjoyed each other’s company awhile longer, and then, mission accomplished, he was off in no particular hurry.

I got up, baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and soon Michelle was home and then Richard; we walked next door to wish our neighbors goodbye.

When we moved here, the folks two doors down had children in college and gone and ours were not all born yet; now ours are grown and gone and they’ve decided it was time for them to move next to their children. Their house sold in a day.  Ohio will be very different.

And so their three-doors-down neighbors were throwing a goodbye party, something we all needed in our impending loss; who else would know about how their orange Persian with the jet-engine purr who would walk over to hang out with my kids? Or would come crash a nearby party like the one just then? We will miss those good people. I’m so glad we got to see them.

Side note: probably fifteen years ago now, I combed that cat’s long soft fur, spun about 18″ out of it, plied it with silk and knit a 1×2″ piece. Glued some pearl beads on some round toothpicks and put the live stitches on my faux knitting needles. Add a pin backing, and there you go!

She kept that memento of him on her fridge for years for all to see.

I got to talking with Bill, who’s behind our fence.  What are the chances that the one person who would know anything would be the one person I said anything to! I asked him whether my birdfeeder had brought more birds into his yard too; he chuckled and admitted he didn’t know birds, really–but: there was a dove that hit the window trying to get away from a hawk and then the hawk hit it too! A big hawk. It had lain there about a half hour before finally picking itself up.

Was it a Cooper’s? Was it the female? (I’m thinking, a third larger, a rounder front, tell me…)

He knew it was a hawk, he chuckled, but that’s about it.

After today’s visit I know the male is clearly doing fine. I hope his mate is too–but it was good to know at least something.

And I bet Bill went home and looked up Cooper’s hawks.

And we all hugged the friends who are leaving and, even knowing they need to, so much wished they wouldn’t go.


6 Comments so far
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I love the bond you and that bird share. Remarkable… all creatures great and small…

Here’s hoping the new neighbors will be awesome too.

Comment by Channon 06.08.12 @ 7:24 am

Friends come and go (both human and avian), but they are never gone from our hearts.

Comment by Don Meyer 06.08.12 @ 8:58 am

so glad to hear that the coopers is back!!

Comment by Bev 06.08.12 @ 9:03 am

awww, IM in love with my crow. He’s big and loud and survived the west nile disease
I cannot wait for his arrival each afternoon/evening.
He’s huge

Comment by kathy b 06.08.12 @ 4:21 pm

I’m grateful you had the company you did – through the years and yesterday.

Comment by Suzanne in Montreal 06.08.12 @ 6:51 pm

Losing that shared history is hard. But I get why they are moving – I certainly would find it tempting to move close to grandkids.

Comment by twinsetellen 06.09.12 @ 5:53 pm



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