Previously, the trowel was for playing games with the scrub jays: try to find this stale almond. You watched me walk over to the tool on top of the barbecue grill, go see what I was up to. Kinda fun to play peekaboo with them and to watch those long crow-like bills poking around under there, their  heads bent down to their toes. They’re on to me.

Yesterday I put out suet for the little birds but not the jays’ expected nuts at first, trying to avoid those few steps into the sun because it was a little later in the morning than I liked and I knew there would be more sun time in the afternoon.

Big and blue and it flew in close, staring me down from the other side of the window and then swooping out in a slalom over the grill. Playtime is serious stuff. I got the hint. Next time I looked up, the trowel was moved halfway across the top, a first. Calvinball, bird style.

This afternoon, with the sky a late shade of gray, I picked up that trowel and walked halfway across the yard and put it in front of one of the holes I’d spaded out. August Pride: that went furthest to the left (I’m recording it here, I’ll never remember later) where it will eventually block out the view of the weather vane the neighbor put on top of the fence years ago, an aged Snoopy with his arms twirling stiffly in the wind. Just peachy–or it will be.  I scooped out the hole a little more thataway with the trowel, trying to use my arms but not my back.

Then the middle one, on the other side of the bay laurel tree: the Babcock. The variety my friend Constance grew up with and raved over and that I have childhood memories of my Dad saying was a great one among the white types. Again, in a great spot. I was very pleased.

Then going further down the raised bed and to the right of the lemon tree, the Tropic Snow.  The one that’s supposed to be so ornamental as well as (like the others) among the best in taste tests, but there was just no room to put it where it would be the first thing to see looking up from my window by the computer, at the other end of the bed. It had to go at this end. I’m not so pleased with the spot also because we have some major trimming of a weed tree to do to get optimal sun there, which hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t till spring at the earliest. Putting the peach there now might–might–even make it a little longer of a job for the trimmers to do.

Although. The worst thing that could happen is that they drop a limb and snap the whole sapling off, in which case I’d be back to square one and no time lost than if I hadn’t tried at all; so much better to have a head start and take my chances.

I think it’ll do.

It wasn’t quite five o’clock and, overcast or no, I should really have gone inside at that point. But I didn’t quite right away. I walked up and down, taking it in, admiring the growth and the health of these baby trees bursting with inner life, still green at their new-this-year shoots. They are going to thrive, they are going to bless my family, they are going to give us the best peaches ever, they are going to survive my grandchildren climbing them someday and waving at the neighbors with the you’re-so-vane Snoopy.

To life!

My daughters and I went to Coupa Cafe for their hot chocolate that is melted-dark-chocolate-and-a-little-milk. They don’t serve dairy-free, but going there is so much a part of any coming home for Sam; we went, we chatted over the mega-noise levels, we bought take-out cups for the menfolk.

I had described over the last few days how much I love having my own personal Cooper’s hawk around but I don’t think Sam had ever seen one, certainly not ours nor up close.

On our way home, on the telephone wires right next to the main road, in a neighborhood where I’ve seen one before, I looked up as Michelle drove and right there was, you guessed it, a Cooper’s hawk, chest glowing in the clear sun amidst what has mostly been clouds and rain of late, its feathers and colors highlighted and Right There, absolutely glorious. I exclaimed and Sam turned quickly to catch a glimpse too as the car went by.

Given the several miles from home, it might not have been our Cooper’s, but it may well have fledged from the nest in the tall tree that reaches over our yard and I tell you, it had the most exquisite sense of timing.

Watching (thank you Sam!) David Attenborough and The Life of Birds series on the monitor next to this one.  Geese, 1700 miles in 70 hours of migration.   The longest beak-t0-bird ratio in the world, kind of like a knitter who dropped her ball of yarn and keeps walking and then turns around at the end of the house to see, is the best visual I can think of to describe its immense length.  Acorn woodpeckers, which I once saw at work in Pacific Grove, a whole tree trunk solid with acorns stuffed rattattat up the sides, and Attenborough’s mention that each family keeps its own tree, moving acorns as they shrink to holes small enough for them. I did not know that. Close-ups. Slow-motions. Details.

I have no idea what he said that one was just now, but it looked very Harry Potterish: bright turquoise, with a long forked tail that swoops around in an S curl behind and below as it takes to the air.

A pretty–and I’d guess little–bird broke off a dried narrow stick and used it to stab into the crevice in a tree to shiskabob insects. Now a crow’s doing that, too. Somehow they got a camera into the worm’s side of things, showing that beak coming in at it and the worm playing dodgeball. Wait–what was that eating the zebra’s ear wax? And how did we get there?

Highly recommended, if you get a chance to watch these.

Michelle snagged a cheap flight to go spend Thanksgiving with the Texas relatives.

My sweet Richard offered–cheerfully!–to get up at 4 am tomorrow to take her to the airport and insisted I should sleep in.

And he and I saw a Cooper’s hawk perched on the telephone wires across the intersection while we were stopped at a light this afternoon, so we could both get a good look at it. Very cool.

Fly well, everybody. Have a very happy Thanksgiving.

It was a little after ten p.m. Richard’s back was bugging him; no problem, my turn then.

The light out that side burned out years ago and somehow we just never seem to remember to replace it–actually, we couldn’t now, not that obsolete type. Eh. I could barely tell where the dark plastic trashcan was to open the lid–okay, there, over you go.

I always have this guilty feeling that I must be clonking some poor raccoon in the head when I do that.

Meantime: fussy pattern, super-splitty fussy yarn. Bad combination, and I’m still dragging; I didn’t want to be bothered with it. I ripped and started over. Nice, plain purl rows–no purl two through back loops stuff. I didn’t want to be no stinkin’ fancy-pants designer tonight, I just wanted to knit.

And then I had to go off on a tangent and make it come out a new way anyway.  It’s coming along nicely now. I quite like it.

A certain daughter of mine who took ballroom dancing in college (and who, unlike me, is quite good at that sort of thing) cracked up when I pointed out this comic. Heh.

Meantime. A follow-up re the peregrines: Haya fledged from the bridge between Oakland and Alameda a year and a half ago and was later found shot. She has had three surgeries and been through long, long training and rehab–and they are preparing to release her! She has healed and her flights have become strong now; they’d been afraid the day would never come, but it has. Very cool what good people can do.

And…

Years ago, I saw the hearse. It was parked across the street as I came home, not your usual suburban-neighborhood sight. Later that day, I saw the college-age son, who was so very grateful at having someone to talk to at his mom’s passing from cancer.

His dad remarried a couple years later and moved away–but he did not sell that house. A series of renters came and went, and after the moving vans would leave, the dad and son would be back and working around the place for a day or so. They kept it looking as beautiful as his mother had left it. Rose trees blooming in the front.

A new family’s little toddler grew into early school age there–but again, the moving van came just a few days ago.

And yet somehow it surprised me to see him across the street this afternoon, and it took me just a moment to be sure it really was him. He was as glad to see me as I was to see him–and I saw in his face what is always clearly there after each gap in time, an, Oh good, you’re still… The lupus and Crohn’s didn’t… Such joy in his face.

Life IS good.

The little eight-year-old boy who moved into that house all those years ago is now a 30-something good man with a fiancee and a life to begin. In the home where the ’89 Loma Prieta quake swept him clear out of the pool and splashed him onto the ground. A house with stories for him to tell their future children, of his mother’s roses, of her presence.

I look forward to pointing out the Cooper’s hawk for them. And maybe even an eight-octave zone-tailed. And hand in hand with their little ones someday, klutzy-footed and all, I shall dance.

I wrote about Twinkies last night because I wasn’t quite ready to talk about the news that had just come in.

Shadow, almost ready to take his first flight.

Shadow, two weeks ago, with his falcon (falcon meaning the female of the peregrine species, tiercel being the male). Come next spring, he would have been of age and they would have been setting up their first nest together.

I had never understood the reasoning behind spending money to bury power lines in this part of the world.  Back home, where hurricanes rip through on a regular basis, sure, but here it’s the earth that is more likely to move and cause damage.

Now I get it. There are major power lines criss-crossing major bird flyway territory around the Bay, and word is that he wasn’t the first.

Shadow was stooping (the swift, steep dive that peregrines do at up to a clocked 241 mph) and he hit one of those wires. Apparently one of the birdwatchers saw it happen and got him to the proper rescue authorities, but there was nothing they could do but let him go painlessly.

The good news is that the species has recovered enough that this is not catastrophic, just personal. And his falcon, who already has a territory to claim her own, will thus easily find a new mate.

Channeling my inner James Taylor today. I drove north. I drove south. I drove south. I drove north. I survived 101, 880, 538, 13,  538, 880, 101, 85, and more 101. It was freeway day. And if you did the speed limit near the bridge you might get to see that great blue heron like I did.

But just before I even got on the first on-ramp, a peregrine falcon flew close overhead as my car pointed towards the Bay.  Wow! Further on, a red-tailed hawk was observing traffic from a sign pole, then a Cooper’s hawk. A gray chest and tall, regal posture on another light pole, and there were groupings of soaring raptors three times. That made no sense to me–hawks in flocks? Since when?

Till I saw an email from an old birding friend after I got home.

The funny thing is, I hadn’t heard from her in maybe a year, and before I’d even walked out to my car, unknown to me she somehow had thought of me and sent me a link to an article about broadwing hawks having very recently been discovered in California. Lots of them. They’re an East Coast bird, migrating to the Amazon, with a few that live in western Canada. It describes their behaviors, and yes they do soar together in groups like I saw.

Ninety-nine percent of the ones that had suddenly shown up here were juveniles.

So the youth had voted to come to the San Francisco Bay. Who knows? The air apparents may even “settle on down traveling man” and claim the place for their own.

It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out with the locals.

My sister and nephew (on Richard’s side) in Manhattan are fine, my friend Afton’s been allowed to return home, my daughter in Baltimore ended up with two leaks in her roof that the landlord is getting right to, my sister-in-law in New Jersey says they’re not going anywhere till things get cleaned up a bit–but all of them are fine.

And as I ran an errand in the late afternoon I marveled at how ordinary and untouched everything around me was. Real weather is a spectator sport in California, pretty much. I marveled at how few lives were lost back East, as terrible as Sandy was of a storm, while sobered at the ones that were.

On a different note. Or somehow not entirely; nature continues. Ahote, one of the peregrine fledglings of a year and a half ago from the San Jose City Hall nest, has in the last few months grown his adult plumage, found a female, (unbanded, so, not from one of our observed nests, yay for genetic diversity), and found a territory they clearly call their own together in anticipation of spring, having been seen numerous times by one of the falconistas, who took their picture today near the Bay. He’s on the left, she’s on the right. Beautiful.

Un-fore-gettable…

Okay, this is silly, but it grabbed my imagination and wouldn’t let go. You’ve probably heard about it by now, but. A two foot leopard shark fell out of the sky on a golf course in San Juan Capistrano a few days ago. Didn’t hit anybody, and someone grabbed it into their golf cart and dashed for the clubhouse.

Was it an osprey? A peregrine? Whodunit?

Now, every kid out there has been taught that hurt animals are angry animals and to stay away. The story doesn’t say: was it a two-row golf cart? Did he put it in the back to keep those teeth away? Or just right down next to him? Did it set off the Fasten Seatbelt sign?

Someone got it in a bucket with water, okay, there, phew. No! Wait! Sharks are saltwater fish, hey, run, grab some salt out of the kitchen for me, we gotta save this thing! And so they poured salt around its wounds, and someone snapped its picture.

Then they got it to the nearby ocean and somehow, incredibly, the thing had survived all that enough to recover and take off. No bones to break when you’re cartilege-only, I guess, but wow.

And now he can tell his friends about the raptor and the humans that got away.

They are stocky, with racing stripes–dark, white, dark and again across the tops of their heads, a bike helmet effect: the white-crowned sparrows are in town again. Didn’t see them coming. Last saw them in the spring. It’s nice living near the bi-cycles of a major flyway.

And yet. My children never had the overhead change of seasons I had growing up, where waves upon waves of wings would pass in wide dark-against-the-sky swaths overhead as the timing of the light changed. There is nothing to compare to that experience in northern California–but certainly, and happily, no absence of birds in the winters.

It turns out that these like the safflower seeds I’d changed to to ward off the squirrels. Not only that, but in the past, the white-crowneds have come to the yard to eat berries off the bushes but haven’t tended to venture up close all that much; now they’re up close. Who knew.

But the chickadees don’t love safflower, and I love chickadees.

The squirrels haven’t found out yet: I finally started putting just a little sunflower at the very bottom of the feeder before covering them over with safflower camouflage. The finches fight for the top perches while the chickadees dart in below and get what they like. I know their wily ways.

And I want all the fall and winter birds I can get.

(Edited to add: and I just found this. White-crowneds’ songs changed over time in San Francisco to be heard over the human noise, and when the old songs of earlier years were played back, the sparrows didn’t recognize them. And suddenly my head is singing Ricky Nelson, I went to a garden party… Or, wow, the late Ricky’s sons singing it.)

It has been so long since he came so close. I looked up just as he landed.

On the back of the chair on the other side of the window.

He was wagging his tail repeatedly at first, shifting his feet, glancing around, antsy–anybody hiding in those elephant ears? C’mon, I know you’re in there, I’m dining al fresco and I’d like a little lunch before it rains.

And then he became more still and settled in place.

A few moments later, he looked at me from the right. Then from the left. Straight on. Trying for the best bird’s-eye view with me. Lunch was forgotten; we simply were.

His colors are a bit faded, spring’s brightness months over. But the chestnut at the front, the gray racing stripe across his head, the stripes in the tail, still beautiful. And in good shape, too; I’d found a bedraggled tail feather and had been concerned that the oil I’d sprayed awhile ago on the parchment paper on the awning pole to thwart the squirrels might have done him damage in passing–but no, not at all, he was fine. And now I know.

The jays kept away for a good long time after he was gone.

Swooping in an arc around the patio, and suddenly it was across the yard, having grabbed a small bite on the fly as a second finch hid stock still in the elephant ears. A few hours later something again caught my eye and I looked up: it somehow did a hairpin turn right in the olive tree and away. Whoosh!

A Cooper’s hawk in flight is like time personified: when you’re paying rapt attention, the moment stretches  from here to forever, and yet look away and it’s gone. How on earth do they go that fast? It’s like the speed at which little kids grow up. After they grow up.

I counted fourteen mourning doves under the birdfeeder this evening, a huge number; usually there’s just a few. I wondered if I wasn’t the only one noticing.

Richard was home when together we looked up to see the hawk do a loop clear around the awning pole–and then he looped again!

Silly bird. Don’t you know that if you cast on with an e-wrap the length between loops gets longer and longer as you knit across the first row?

Three days ago, the male scrub jay was raiding suet constantly, flying to his mate, and feeding her often and conspicuously, owning the porch to the yard to that part of the trees. All others must fear the stabby beaks–even the squirrels.

It has been clear that the Cooper’s hawk too of late has been making clear announcements of his territory, as raptors do around equinox and solstice; I haven’t seen him much, and his mate not at all anymore, but the sudden long disappearances of all other birds have been frequent the last week or so.

It was startling to have no jays yesterday morning. None. No sign. I could offer up any kind of food and it wasn’t taken, or at least not by them. I could actually have juncos and towhees come, unthreatened.

There was a sudden jet-scrambling flurry of finches–Coopernicus had been spotted, even if I couldn’t see him.

And then I watched something I’ve never seen before. He did a glide across the yard, as always, and then suddenly pulled straight upright in front of a tree thick with leaves: wings flared like a butterfly and standing vertical in the air, he feinted right, then left, then right again, trying to flush prey out.

While I wondered, how did he DO that?

Then he settled on a bare upper branch a moment and eyed the porch. And me just inside of it. Eh. No time for this, I need lunch, and he glided in a blink towards the redwood and was gone.

About two hours later a jay came back. A second hung far back but there it was, and when they left, they were fleeing to several backyards away rather than watching me for when they could make their move.

I knew the hawk had gotten a taste for jay. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath for them.