RURAL LIVING — NEW MEXICO
A Cooper’s Hawk, a Kestrel, and a Feral Cat walk into a bar
“There’s a hawk.”
“Where?” I’m juggling binoculars and a beer, unsure why my beer is being attacked in mid-January by honeybees.
“On the fence.”
Really, Robert and I aren’t that good at this. Maybe it is because of age or my aphasia — we’ve never gotten good at telling each other where to look. At this moment, we are standing on the north side of our courtyard. In front of me, broken by a line of poles that hold up the small roof that extends out from the stone shed, is our garden, paddock, and property line — all with fences.
He must have sensed my confusion, “By Vera’s place.”
Oh, that limits options — my eyes track the fence line behind the pond, and there he is. A male Cooper’s hawk. And he is beautiful. This isn’t the first one on the property — but it is the first one that was actively hunting rather than hanging out or flying through.
So, we watch.
MoMA — our feral female cat is watching too. A leggy black and white huntress with a face right out of a Picasso painting. She is fierce, hunting roosting places and bringing in doves in the middle of the night for her kittens. I’ve watched her track and…
