That One Wing, A Tribute

Yes, birds were in a flurry last week before Virginia’s second snowstorm of the season – and yet they maintained admirable cooperation and a systematic seed-and-nut gathering routine. This week – impending bad weather once again – there’s something different about the flurry, and I’m not sure how to read the signs. They’ve lost their peace; they are frantic.  Heads are turning abruptly, hops are stiff and tense, flight is recklessly rapid – there’s aggression in the air. The smaller birds are just as mean as the larger birds – pecking at each other, even at their own kind, possibly their own mates, in the acquisition of one seed or nut. Hurr-ee! Hurr-ee!

For months I’ve observed this one large, peaceful, and solitary yellow bellied sapsucker perching himself against the bark of a tree closest to the window near my writing spot – not to mention closest to the suet feeder which he savors at the rate of one cake every two or three days. I'd begun to call him my mascot.  Last weekend during the snowfall, and as I was writing, he found his usual spot not far from the suet, fluffed up his feathers, and hunkered down – unruffled by snow as by the flash of my camera. He has been the most trusting and unhurried of all birds at the feeders. This is the bird who knows – when I rap on the window in my own fit of aggression to scare away hordes of starlings who rob the feeders in planned descent – he’s the bird who knows that I don’t mean him: “Not you, Mr. Sapsucker,” I sometimes say once the starlings have lifted and gone elsewhere. Though he is closest to the window, and in direct line of my rapping, he never flinches one wing at me but rather lifts his red-capped head to pause patiently beside the suet cake – “I can’t eat while you’re rapping,” he might be saying. Then I apologize to the sapsucker – “Not you” – and he slowly resumes the nibbling of his tasty, nutritious treat – and I go about my writing. That’s our routine.

What will I do now? – my mascot gone.  Unbelievably – this trusting, plodding character – downed and eaten alive by a red shouldered hawk.  I had looked out the window just as a hawk was plucking feathers from a large bird -- like what I imagine an old woman would have done to a rooster meant for an angry soup in times gone by.  I suspected . . .
. . . meanwhile, the hawk’s mate sat perched in high branches, shrieking the only two syllables he (or she) knows, kee-yer! kee-yer! – which sounded more like a warning to all would-be do-gooders like myself – Keep 'way! Keep 'way!

Variegated feathers and a stain of pink sullied the white snow – grey downy feathers, meant to keep in warmth and kindness, were suspended briefly in the thick winter air. I made an obvious presence at the window -- but knew it was best to let the job be done completely rather than half-way.  I saw the hawk, at times, looking straight at me between shreds – his mate’s cry beginning to sound more like a challenge and a threat, Come 'ere! Come 'ere! – and I remembered a few years ago when a workman told me about a hawk that had tried to snag a Chihuahua from his parents’ back yard.

Five minutes later, neither bone nor beak remaining, the aggressor’s mate swooped down gleefully from his perch and gently nudged his mate, this time mumbling something that looked like, Enuf, enuf a'ready, let’s get outa here . . . and they flew in tandem to some unknown place.

Writing stopped for what has turned out to be three days -- though I can't entirely blame the loss of my mascot.  I went outside with trepidation and a shovel, all the while noting feathers that were perhaps “too grey,” “too dark,” “too small” – any reason to hope the victim had been anything but my friendly sapsucker – but that one intact wing could not be denied – that one wing that never flinched – and now this:  though it be three days – the uneaten suet cake at my writer’s window.