Last Wednesday
Here are some nature sketches I drew:
Last Wednesday I was at a marina on the lake when I looked up and saw a hawk gliding in lop-sided circles above me. He had wings speckled with different shades of brown like a moth but they were shaped like crooked daggers. I always think of birds as delicate and dainty and I forgot about the sturdy strength of predator birds like hawks or eagles. I can easily imagine a prehistoric dinosaur like a t-rex evolving into something like a hawk. The t-rex is always illustrated with mean eyes and the hawks eyes look a bit mean too. Not that I really think they are mean, but you have different priorities if you spend your day circling the sky in search of small, vulnerable animals. But my cat Wendel is the sweetest cat I've ever met and even he has mean eyes sometimes. After hovering in the air for a while, the hawk dove downward and straight into the water. He was completely immersed in the water before breaking back into the air and flying off. I couldn't see from the distance I was at, but I image he had lake water glistening on his feathers and dripping back down toward the lake. Probably grasped in his talons or beak was a fish he captured for a light snack.
This hawk isn't the only interesting bird I've seen lately. A couple of weeks ago, I was on the ground where I almost always am when I looked up to see two crows flying side by side. One crow looked normal- a black silhouette against a blue sky. But the other crow looked like he had two long, oval shaped holes in his wings. It looked like I could look right through them and see the blue sky. But it must be impossible for a bird to fly with two holes in his wings, so I know this can't be what I really saw. I think he must have had a discoloration mutation and instead he had two white blotches on the underside of his wings. The blue of the sky was reflecting onto the lake and the blue of the lake was reflecting back onto the underside of his wings. It was an odd sight. If I was a person from ancient times I would probably think it was an omen. But I don't know if it would be a good omen or bad. Probably good. It seems like if you see something really interesting it should be considered a good omen.
The hawk unlike the crow was an average looking hawk. But of course hawks are a far less common sight. I probably see hundreds of crows each week but I only see a hawk once in a while. After I was done watching the hawk I walked toward the marina's parking lot. On the way there I ran into my 'friend' who moors her boat at that marina. I use friend in quotation marks because we don't really know each other well enough to be friends but we run into each other now and then at the marina and she is especially friendly and I like her. When I first met her, I thought she looked like a fifty to sixty year old version of one of my college roommates. Really though, their bone structure and most of their features don't look anything alike. But they are both short with big green eyes, so this is enough for them to remind me of each other. We chattered while walking together but our conversation was interrupted by the harbormaster. He was with another man who I had seen working on the gardens earlier. The harbormaster asked if I had seen a man on the dock with a red billed hat. I hadn't, but I was intrigued. Who was this mysterious man with a red billed hat? A thief, a hooligan an international criminal? Based on the two men's anxious body language and the way they rushed off when they found out I had not seen him, red billed hat man must have been a suspicious character up to no good. I wondered aloud to my 'friend' what that could be about, but I never found out. We talked a little bit about dogs and how cute it is when they befriend each other before getting into our cars and leaving.
Last Wednesday I was at a marina on the lake when I looked up and saw a hawk gliding in lop-sided circles above me. He had wings speckled with different shades of brown like a moth but they were shaped like crooked daggers. I always think of birds as delicate and dainty and I forgot about the sturdy strength of predator birds like hawks or eagles. I can easily imagine a prehistoric dinosaur like a t-rex evolving into something like a hawk. The t-rex is always illustrated with mean eyes and the hawks eyes look a bit mean too. Not that I really think they are mean, but you have different priorities if you spend your day circling the sky in search of small, vulnerable animals. But my cat Wendel is the sweetest cat I've ever met and even he has mean eyes sometimes. After hovering in the air for a while, the hawk dove downward and straight into the water. He was completely immersed in the water before breaking back into the air and flying off. I couldn't see from the distance I was at, but I image he had lake water glistening on his feathers and dripping back down toward the lake. Probably grasped in his talons or beak was a fish he captured for a light snack.
This hawk isn't the only interesting bird I've seen lately. A couple of weeks ago, I was on the ground where I almost always am when I looked up to see two crows flying side by side. One crow looked normal- a black silhouette against a blue sky. But the other crow looked like he had two long, oval shaped holes in his wings. It looked like I could look right through them and see the blue sky. But it must be impossible for a bird to fly with two holes in his wings, so I know this can't be what I really saw. I think he must have had a discoloration mutation and instead he had two white blotches on the underside of his wings. The blue of the sky was reflecting onto the lake and the blue of the lake was reflecting back onto the underside of his wings. It was an odd sight. If I was a person from ancient times I would probably think it was an omen. But I don't know if it would be a good omen or bad. Probably good. It seems like if you see something really interesting it should be considered a good omen.
The hawk unlike the crow was an average looking hawk. But of course hawks are a far less common sight. I probably see hundreds of crows each week but I only see a hawk once in a while. After I was done watching the hawk I walked toward the marina's parking lot. On the way there I ran into my 'friend' who moors her boat at that marina. I use friend in quotation marks because we don't really know each other well enough to be friends but we run into each other now and then at the marina and she is especially friendly and I like her. When I first met her, I thought she looked like a fifty to sixty year old version of one of my college roommates. Really though, their bone structure and most of their features don't look anything alike. But they are both short with big green eyes, so this is enough for them to remind me of each other. We chattered while walking together but our conversation was interrupted by the harbormaster. He was with another man who I had seen working on the gardens earlier. The harbormaster asked if I had seen a man on the dock with a red billed hat. I hadn't, but I was intrigued. Who was this mysterious man with a red billed hat? A thief, a hooligan an international criminal? Based on the two men's anxious body language and the way they rushed off when they found out I had not seen him, red billed hat man must have been a suspicious character up to no good. I wondered aloud to my 'friend' what that could be about, but I never found out. We talked a little bit about dogs and how cute it is when they befriend each other before getting into our cars and leaving.