Hawks

We have hawks living around us. For years, we were annoyed by mockingbirds (by the endless nocturnal song emissions of unmated males, that is), and then the hawks arrived. The mockingbirds are still here, but… they’ve shut up. One reason, perhaps, to like hawks.

The hawks appeared a year ago, as the pandemic set in. Had we simply not noticed them before, when it was noisier? We saw them overhead, and learned to recognize their clicking kee-kee-kee calls, and finally, noticed that a tall shrub across the alley, under a eucalyptus tree, was dotted with bird poop. Hawk poop. Looking up, there was the nest.

As the year went on, we saw hawks in our tuckeroo trees — which surround a birdbath. Hawks eat songbirds.

This one, says a neighbor who heads our Audobon Society, is a juvenile Cooper’s hawk. Maybe that’s why he sat there dumbly, 10 feet from me. As the spring went into summer, we sometimes had three hawks swooping through our yard. Then four hawks — the adults, and the fledges — sweeping the sky, settling together on trees on our street.

They came back, and, I’ve got to say, they are randy. The utility pole in the alley behind our house, the Chinese elm in the front yard… as time went on — I’m sure I’m imagining this — they seemed to become more comfortable with mating, it took longer, maybe there was a wink. You know, a hawk wink.

The female was usually eating something when all this occurred. Ripping it apart, piece by piece. It has a way of quieting all the other birds.

Now the eggs are laid, the female watches over them, with occasional flights to nearby trees; the male is hunting, and every day there is aerial combat between the hawks and three or four crows who are out to get them.

Crows are pretty cool birds, but when you see a bunch of them mobbing a hawk, it’s clear which bird the hawk is — the coolest one. The hawk leads them away from the nest, or turns the table and chases them away.

Those crazy hawks, after mating. We’ll wait to see their fledges.