And not just any raptor - this is a Swainson's hawk. In Raptor World they are the guys that get to wear the coolest uniforms (not evident in this photo, way more intense close up).
Very Euro, smooth, sleek, earth tones like a Baltic Country's Army General.
My first encounter with a Swainson's hawk happened on my first memorable trip to Victoria in grade four when my class from Port Alberni got to visit the Parliament Buildings. He was sitting
on a tree branch on the grounds of the Legislature and I noticed him because he looked fierce and imperious, although those are not likely the words I might have used at age 9.
What is the point, you ask, of my inclusion of this most noble but irrelevant beast on a page not normally devoted to things better served by Audobon & co?
The point, and i will try to be brief, is that this magnificent killer was the instrument of a small epiphany for me.
As I rounded the corner of the MacKinnon Building on my nightly constitutional I encountered a Swainson's hawk, talons deep into the carcass of a juvenile rabbit. He pulled at the body, galnced around, pecked a chunk, glanced around.... He was caught between the age old "ought versus want" of knowing he ought to be careful but wanting to dig in to his meal (see earlier blog on dinner table manners).
Here was my noble Swainson's hawk acting like a crow at a dumpster sneaking bites at the back of the gym in the same furtive way my s/s cru acts when they hover over a pack of cigarettes.
And additonally, one of the arrogant rabbit clan had fallen at last.
But that wasn't when the epiphany came.
The light that shone in my head illuminated a brace of basic truths.
All I could think while watching the scene before me was, "and I thought I had a tough day."
Epiph. One - Nobody is quite as powerful as the power we give them.
and Epiph. Two- No matter how bad you think you have it....
I did mention it was a small epiphany. I'm not headed to Damascus to reshape modern religion.
Later.
39 days to go
1 comment:
hmmm...raptor stew...i mean rabbit stew...no i don't.
i had an epiphany today as well. i realized that pretty much everyone is terrible at their jobs. if weed was legalized, these people would smoke more, thus being even worse, thus getting fired, and i would have no trouble getting to the top...not that i will anyway.
seriously though, raptors are purple dinosaurs.
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