In flight
This past weekend, I happened to look up from my computer just in time to see a buzzard skim low across the back field and then, with two lazy flaps, rise into a tree and land. I raced downstairs to grab the binoculars and get a closer look.
Oh, it was beautiful: broad-chested, marked in brown and black bars against white, with a vivid yellow bill and eyes. It skulked among the leaves, wings hunched, looking around nervously. And with good reason; after a few minutes, two magpies arrived and started hassling it, hopping about the branches. (Sidebar: I'm rather fond of magpies - except when they start making that smoker's-cough noise in the early morning outside my window.) The buzzard bore it for a while but then it just dropped from the tree and flew away, low to the ground.
I wish I could have gotten some pictures but (a) I didn't know where my camera was and (b) it doesn't have a good enough zoom to take a shot at such a distance (I was viewing all this through the kitchen window). But it lifted my heart to see such a lovely and unexpected sight. I love watching birds in flight. The elegance, the control, that sharp silhouette of wings and tail. And when they're flocking, the way they wheel and glide, rise and fall in eerie, rippling coordination, makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. We live in an amazing and lovely world, and (at the risk of sounding like one of those slighty manic/creepy Christians) I am very grateful to God for that.
Oh, it was beautiful: broad-chested, marked in brown and black bars against white, with a vivid yellow bill and eyes. It skulked among the leaves, wings hunched, looking around nervously. And with good reason; after a few minutes, two magpies arrived and started hassling it, hopping about the branches. (Sidebar: I'm rather fond of magpies - except when they start making that smoker's-cough noise in the early morning outside my window.) The buzzard bore it for a while but then it just dropped from the tree and flew away, low to the ground.
I wish I could have gotten some pictures but (a) I didn't know where my camera was and (b) it doesn't have a good enough zoom to take a shot at such a distance (I was viewing all this through the kitchen window). But it lifted my heart to see such a lovely and unexpected sight. I love watching birds in flight. The elegance, the control, that sharp silhouette of wings and tail. And when they're flocking, the way they wheel and glide, rise and fall in eerie, rippling coordination, makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. We live in an amazing and lovely world, and (at the risk of sounding like one of those slighty manic/creepy Christians) I am very grateful to God for that.