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July 16:
Jay and I returned yesterday from a cruise in the Bahamas to find Dallas sweltering in the summer heat, with temperatures 100° and above for days. Despite the heat, my patio flowers look pretty good, as Natalia had watered them while we were away. This morning, I filled the watering can and went outside to start the day right for my plants. And that’s when I heard it.
I could hardly believe my ears. My heart leaped as I heard “Eeee-uuuu. Eeee-uuuu,” the cry of a baby Coopers hawk! I walked out across the greenbelt, trying to track down the little hawk. The cries were coming from across the canal. I back-tracked and crossed the bridge, then cautiously worked my way south. The cries stopped. I searched the branches of every tree, and finally I found him! He was perched in full view, basking in the morning sun. I could clearly see the vertical juvie stripes on his breast and his yellow eyes. The fledgling hawk was huge! Perhaps a female?
Neighbors from a couple of blocks north came by to see what I was watching. They have pigeons at their home, and they said the Coopers hawks are about to clear them out. They also told me a hawk had been hit by a car and killed near their house. This causes me a great deal of anxiety, but they believe it happened maybe two months ago. It’s unlikely that Rufous could have fledged the chicks on his own, so hopefully the unfortunate hawk was not Henrietta. And we have seen a lot of Rufous recently. If the dead hawk was a Coopers hawk, it was probably one of their offspring from past years, not something I want to think about.
Continue to Chapter 10: Frick and Frack
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