Hawking

After weathering the last few frigid days, Ron and I took advantage of the balmy weather to head south and visit Tyler at Emporia. And count hawks. The latter experience was purely serendipitous, as we had no formal intention of counting hawks - it just kind of happened.

Today was fine hawk counting weather. Clear skies, cool breezes. They're fairly easy to spot. Just look for a dark spot (with the telltale white breast) perching high in leafless trees. I'm kind of amazed that those tiny branches near the top of the trees are able to hold such big birds. I was thinking they must weigh about 15 pounds, but then I remembered the turkey we had for Christmas and it was 17 pounds (give or take a few ounces) and these hawks were nowhere near that big. Actually, we had ham for Christmas, so it must have been our Thanksgiving turkey. But, I digress. I really don't know how much they weigh. It just seems to be more than the average tiny tree branch should be able to support.

A lot of hawks seem to enjoy being right next to the road. Ron wondered aloud why this might be so, and I suggested it's because they know bored people like us like to count them. Or name them, like my dad used to do when he and mom would drive from Rogers, AR to Merriam. They all had "H" names: Harry, Horatio, Heloise, Henrietta, Hubert, Helen . . .

I said that maybe they sat near the roads so they could have a bird's eye view (ha) of the acres that no doubt hold tasty morsels of field mice. But, as Ron pointed out, nearly all of them have their backs to the fields. I then went into the whole "the grass is always greener on the other side of the highway" theory.

And that was pretty much the flavor of our conversation during the entirety of our trip.

Scintillating, ain't it?