Saturday, April 17, 2021

Hawk Up


Studley Windowson, my personal chickadee, and I have had a tight relationship for the past three years, and by this point I can pick out his single "chip" note in a blather of birdsong even when I'm inside and he isn't, which he mostly isn't. (That one time he hopped into the house and landed on my desk didn't work out well for anybody, although it was briefly adorable.) Yes, I can tell Studley's voice just as fast as I can find an errant apostrophe in a page of prose. I generally go to the nearest window and put my finger up for him--so he knows I'm "on it"--and fetch my mealworm container and pop outside.
 
So I was on the back porch the other day dispensing worms for Studley as usual, and as usual he takes one and zips out to the hibiscus to saw it up for himself. He tears it neatly on the perforations. While he was busy doing that I looked up in the sky, because that's what birders do, and I've given up saying I'm not a birder even though I'm not good at it. Clearly I am a birder of some description, or I'd never drive two mph on the highway with my head crammed into the windshield.
 
There was the usual traffic. Three local crows were doing a lazy circle around the Douglas fir next door, a whacket of pigeons went by, the neighbor's Katsura coughed up a spray of goldfinches. And way up high, there was a hawk. Not one of the big fat ones. This was one of the little skinny ones with the long narrow tail, either a Cooper's or a Sharp-shinned, which, for my money, are the same bird. I will never tell them apart, but I can pick out a skinny hawk from a great distance, and I personally know people who don't even recognize chickadees that land on them. I looked back at Studley. He was still sawing away at his worm.
 
I kept an eye on the distant hawk, a dot in the sky. The various species of birds were occupying different layers of air like a living Bird Poster and he was at the tippy top all by himself. I know that hawk can move in a hurry and I'd already decided I would go stand next to Studley in his shrub so I can bat the hawk out of the air if he gets a notion for chickadee nuggets. But then Studs finished his worm, which usually means he's coming in for seconds, only this time he stayed put, and glanced around, and made lots of little noises best represented by punctuation marks. He wasn't going anywhere. The hawk wheeled away and back again and only when he passed over the house and out of sight did Studley dip back for his snack.

What a smart Studley! What a bird! Fully operational crack raptor detection system using eyes the size of poppy seeds. I was so impressed he could pick out a silhouette of a threat from so far away! But I shouldn't be. All the proto-chickadees of yore who couldn't recognize a hawk have long since been nipped out of the gene pool. Still it amazes: I'm sure it must come with the whole original package. They can't be learning this all from personal experience. That would be dreadful. The spark of caution must be in the yolk somewhere.

I don't know if there's a parallel human experience. Most of us seem to be born wired to jump away from snakes. Spiders too. We're born afraid of heights, which is sensible for the wing-deprived. But especially in the last couple hundred years, we've thrown so many layers of comfort and convenience between us and what we need to survive that we couldn't tell a real threat from a horror flick. We poop in the water dish and kick over our kibble bowls. Extinction has to be fictional. But vaccines, antifascists, going gray, and Mercury in retrograde? Scary.


39 comments:

  1. I think that you're right; this is intrinsic knowledge with birds. Even my parrots -- who were raised by people and have never encountered a hawk -- react to one. Even if it only appears as a dot in the sky through the window, Mikey will hold very still until it goes away. Sometimes, if it takes her by surprise by flying down our driveway, she will shriek and flap off to hide under some furniture. If I don't know where she landed, I have to look everywhere, because she will not move nor make a sound.

    People have this, too. It's why so many people have anxiety and focus on the negative. If our distant ancestors weren't wary of everything and thought life was beautiful, they would have been eaten by the saber-toothed tiger that they didn't see because they were busy admiring the sunset. Even though we no longer have the predators to watch out for, our relative safety is a recent thing in our total history. Our bodies and minds still function the old way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Another interesting thing I read: Our survival instinct also explains why we see "faces" in patterns of wood grain and wallpaper. At one time, our lives depended on picking out human faces from the surrounding trees, as they could be preying upon us.

      Delete
    2. I'm a miracle of modern civilization: a very nearsighted sunset-watcher who counts on other people to keep me upright.

      Delete
    3. I wonder how near-sightedness (which I also have) even made it as a trait, considering how deleterious it is as a survival trait. It couldn't have been just to bring about Impressionist painting.

      Delete
    4. Similarly mystified! By the time I finally received coke-bottle glasses at ten, I already experienced several close calls (cars, iron fence rail). Hard to imagine a near-sighted ancestor surviving to even bobbin girl age. "Whacket of pigeons": fabulous.

      Delete
    5. Wow, I think I've found my tribe. Before the age of five, when I entered first grade, I thought everything in the world had fuzzy edges. And everybody else saw fuzzy edges, too.

      Delete
    6. I went to a Catholic grade school. I remember getting my eyes tested for the first time there, and also blaming the nuns for "having bad handwriting on the blackboard." Little did I know that there was actually something wrong with MY vision.

      Delete
    7. Do you remember that astonishing moment when you realized the trees had *individual* leaves?

      Delete
    8. Yes, and when stars went from indistinct fuzzy blobs, to actual points of light, as they were shown in books!
      (Mary Annoying, again)

      Delete
    9. My first glasses were at age nine after my mother asked me to tell her what hymn was next we were to sing next at church. I was busily looking it up in our "program, get your program, can't tell the hymns without it" when she figured out I couldn't read the big numbers posted in the apse. With my new googly-eyes, I fondly remember seeing my father's wrinkles and the leaves on trees across the street.

      Delete
    10. I couldn’t see the score on the baseball scoreboard way out in centerfield. My Dad loved telling that story for years after.

      Delete
  2. I think all the birds going into commotion is a big warning of a nearby hawk, but having said that I am always amazed when I see a robin peering at something 20 feet away which I would need a magnifying glass to notice from 6 inches, then swooping down on a minute, pin-head size insect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Studley can spy a mealworm from across the yard.

      Delete
  3. I very much enjoyed those pics of Studley (esp the one with him on your fella's knee--wow) but you sure sound like a birder to me! I'd barely recognize a hawk from a pterodactyl if I had to, let alone more grounded predators. I'm doomed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I could tell a red-tailed hawk from a Cooper's from a sharp-shinned from red-shouldered only if they did me the courtesy of lining up on the fence in order of size, and showed me their profiles and backs too. Maybe not even then.

      Delete
    2. Jeeze, Jeremy... I suppose they should pivot, pout, and toss their head feathers like a supermodel, too! ;) (Actually, I'd pay to see THAT!)

      Delete
  4. We once had a canary that we kept at a kitchen window. One time during each year we had him, he would suddenly squawk and squawk for days until we figured out what was wrong---a pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks that came through during migration had returned to our feeder. We covered the canary's cage after that until the grosbeaks moved on. Our canary had never lived outside, so it must have been in his genetic memory.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mealworms=bird crack. I am local dealer too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes! Honestly, I bought 2,000 a year ago and I still have a bunch.

      Delete
  6. YES.
    And we condemn others as 'bird brained' without realising just what a compliment it is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stud's a genius. An awful lot of people go on and on about crows, and rightfully so, recognizing human faces and so forth, but I think most birds do that.

      Delete
  7. "The spark of caution must be in the yolk somewhere."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have a talent for picking out my favorite parts.

      Delete
    2. You have a talent for making the favorite parts for me to pick out. <3

      Delete
  8. About being wired to avoid snakes: Here’s a tale of an experiment I heard from a psych prof back in the 70s. A group of children were let out onto a playground where there were a bunch of suitcases. When they played with the latches, the suitcases popped open on spring-hinges to reveal lots of harmless snakes. The children had a great time playing with the snakes. Then the scenario was repeated, but this time, the children’s parents were watching. As soon as the parents saw the snakes, they ran screaming into the yard, scooped up their kids and skedaddled. After that — and only after that — those same children were terrified of snakes. It had to happen only once. It's wired into the birds; but maybe not into us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder if the suitcase story is true! I do know people who got some of their fears from being taught them. But I did believe the snake thing was innate.

      Delete
    2. I suspect that I caught my fear of heights from my mother, but I'll never know.

      Delete
    3. Standing next to mother on a castle parapet, she shared her thoughts about pushing somebody off the cliff whenever she was next to a precipice. Just a bit of TMI never pursued, but I always stood a little further away from her after then ...

      Delete
    4. A sound idea, that. I'm afraid of precipices because I keep thinking I'm going to jump off. Bridges too. And I'm not suicidal.

      Delete
  9. Such a clever little bird is Studley and of course it is an inbuilt caution, but I'm smiling so wide, my face is going to start hurting from it any second now. I just love that little bird of yours.
    I've been wondering lately if I should buy mealworms and keep them for the magpies in late spring when the parents are teaching the babies how to fend for themselves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My niece was inspired last year to entice some nesting juncos with mealworms and got them and their whole family to fly to her hand, and then I think she got a song sparrow too. If you've got a little patience, you could work some wonders.

      Delete
  10. Murr, that photo of Studley on Dave's knee?!! How sweet is that!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. "A whacked of pigeons went by . . " (I love your words!) Wouldn't they be hawk-cautious as well? Or do they just count on never being the slowest pigeon? Study is a WISE old bird. I wonder if his progeny are learning an of his commands to humans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wish! There is another chickadee hanging out with him a lot and I don't know if it's Marge or his kid, but I think it isn't Marge, because he's not feeding her. The second bird knows what I've got and is very interested and he came close, a foot away, gathering up courage, and Studley bombed in and chased him right out of the bush. Studley wants the whole franchise.

      Delete
  12. I am James Stood from New York, United States, I am really excited about the work of DR. ZUMA, if not for him, I could have committed a suicide by now, or join my ancestors now, my wife left me with our two kids without having any misunderstanding, I tried to console her to come back to me, nothing was working out, I tried my best to have her back, I begged her, kneeled before her and begged her in tears, her no was still NO, she said she is not interested in the relationship anymore, I cried all through running up and down the streets, family relatives all to have her back because I missed her a lot mostly my children, I was not even seeing their faces at all. After a week, she brought a divorce letter to me for me to sign, I looked up and down, tears rolled down and I was frustrated, I told her, I will have to think about it. To God be all the Glory, I was directed by a friend of mine to a specialist world best known male Love Spell Caster called DR. ZUMA, I speak to her on phone, emailed each other all the time and he told me not worry about anything at all, I should relax my mind and calm down that my wife is going to come back before the week runs out, he also said he don’t charge for any of spell works, all I have to do is to provide the money needed for him to buy the materials to cast the love spell on her, I send to him and after two days he mailed and said he is done with the work, that my wife is going to come back in three days time with our children and she will kneel before me and begged in tears and promise not to leave me with any heart break again and she will cancelled the divorcement letter. I hacking into the words of DR. ZUMA and believed in him, all to my greatest surprise the words of DR. ZUMA came to pass and my wife now love me and we are now living together as one. I don’t have anything to say thank you to DR. ZUMA so I have to tell the world about him and you also can find a favor in him by contacting him on his email address spiritualherbalisthealing@gmail.com Whatsapp: +1(506)800-1647

    ReplyDelete