Okay, so the red-tailed hawk is misnamed slightly — a reddish tint, true, but less crimson than copper. From the distance of earth relative to sky, though, the sun turns its feathers a mystical shade of red.
You wouldn’t know it by the view outside the window (a slushy rain that has turned now fully to snow, thick grass and lush green fields already frosted in a late and insistent white) but we this is, in its way a scarlet season: one of copper dawns and crimson sunsets; of the red-gold flames of the fire still needed to ward off the chill; of flower petals in every hue, from pale pink to magenta to the pure scarlet of tulips and wild poppies and the mulberry shades of the lilacs; and the bright rusty tailfeathers of the hawk itself, as with winter, not yet ready to depart.
Spring is more often the time of the Swainson’s, and occasionally the smaller raptors, too — Cooper’s hawk, harrier, sometimes kestrel. the vultures have returned, also, soaring on the thermals, then swooping dramatically in search of their version of prey, faces flashing their own bit of scarlet in the sun.
But the red-tails are more often part-year residents, visiting occasionally in autumn but not willing to stay until winter is well under way. And once spring has reached its mid-point, they are usually long gone, especially in a warmer year.
But all bets are off now. A drastically altered and still shifting climate has seen to that. Wild creatures that have never seen this place now veer far off their migratory paths; others that were permanent residents are now rarely seen. And those that make their homes here at least part of the year have found their schedules as upended as our own by extremes of weather and drought. The red-tails are no exception; our permanent (if part-year) resident mated pair have returned of late, and are showing signs of intending to stick around a while. Normally, they would have ceded space to the smaller Swainson’s sometime last month, but our pair remain, sometimes circling, sometimes sitting, watchful . . . and memorably, a few days ago, the female racing alongside me near eye level, chattering all the way.
The hawks I tend to associate with storms; my own people tell of a time when Hawk was punished for playing with the Thunderbirds to the neglect of his own duties. Aperch upon a pole or high branch, they often resemble Thunderbird, too: broad shoulders squared, regal head turned to the side to watch for prey, tailfeathers fanned as they spring for takeoff. But this year, they are sharing time and space with the adornments of a newly-fertile earth, with the petals of the poppies and the tulips and the lilac blossoms and the wilder blooms.
They share a season now, too, with late fire: that of a sun that rises an hour later, thanks to human intervention, and a sun that sets much later, too, and those of the flames that dance in the woodstoves morning and night, as the warm days surrender the darker hours yet to the last vestiges of winter’s chill.
The forecast predicts intermittent snow this evening, giving way to a steadier fall overnight and into tomorrow. Beneath it all the green still rises, and the crimson petals bloom, albeit a bit bedraggled now. The inner fire will burn not too many more weeks yet, as the heat of the outer fire assumes control of time and place, space and season.
For now, as the day wanes beneath a heavy white sky, a few red petals still show beneath the rime of snow upon the green. They remind us of the value of resilience, and of persistence, and of the beauty of a scarlet season, one of petals and feathers and fire.
~ Aji
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