Mid-afternoon on Thanksgiving, I went to my garden to collect the last of the season’s arugula and parsley. Knees on the cold earth, something made me turn. Gazing across rows of empty garden beds, I found myself staring into two fierce yellow eyes. Beneath them, a black beak curved over ivory breast feathers dappled with brown. A young Cooper’s hawk stood on the trampoline where only hours before my children had been bouncing.
I backed out of the garden quietly and returned with my camera. Much to my delight, the hawk was still there. I focused my long-range lens, and as soon as the camera shutter snapped, the hawk burst into the air and flew headlong into the net surrounding the trampoline. That’s when I realized it was trapped.
As I approached, I noticed the lifeless robin in the hawk’s left talon. Had it chased the robin into the enclosure, I wondered, or landed there to devour its kill? There was no way to know. Talking softly to the hawk, I pinned the entry open to provide an escape route. The frightened bird attempted flight again and again, never clearing the six feet of net. I left, hoping it would find its way out.
When I returned minutes later with my two-year-old daughter on my hip, the hawk was still there, although it had relinquished its grip on the robin. My daughter’s exuberant “Hi, hawk!” only seemed to intensify the bird’s terror, and it frantically bounced against the enclosure. I made my way to the far side of the trampoline, hoping that the hawk might retreat from us and fly out the door. I held my breath as it flew toward the opening. But it aimed too high and hooked its talons into the net. For a moment, its beating wings kept it upright, but as soon as it stopped flapping, it began tilting backward. I was surprised that the net didn’t tear beneath the bird’s weight and its claws. The hawk reclined gradually, as if in slow motion, until it was hanging upside down with its wings extended.
“Oh me gosh,” my daughter said. “His head is standing up!”
“I know—I’m worried about him,” I lamented. “Maybe we should just walk away, and he’ll figure out how to get out of that hole. He’s right there.”
We took a few steps, and in a blur of feathers, the hawk shot through the opening and landed on the ground.
“He’s free! He’s free!” I proclaimed. “That worked! Hallelujah.”
I took my daughter back inside and returned once more—this time to retrieve the robin, which I worried the hawk might come back for. I was surprised to see those intense yellow eyes watching me from the upper boughs of a nearby tree. I climbed into the trampoline enclosure and scooped up the songbird’s limp body with a handful of leaves. It’s head lolled as I turned it in my hands. The center of its chest bore a deep, crimson puncture wound. I lay the body on the ground—right where the hawk had landed after its escape—and I went to the garden to finish my work. The hawk watched me the whole time from its forest perch.
Hours later, I came back. The hawk was gone. So was the robin.
I peered into the gray sky and gave thanks.
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