Soaring over Sauvie

I am yet a beginning birder.
I see common birds soaring over Sauvie Island.
And get giddy and delighted.
Someday, I will spot the rare birds.

















But today, I spin on my heels in the grey sand, on the banks of the Columbia to see a red-tail hawk appear above me.
From nowhere.

On a day where the pale disc of the sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds and winning.
I had been looking at the far away cormorants perched on a submerged tree.
I had seen a bird dive and bob in the water and fly way.
A Osprey or a Tern?
Hard to tell through my binoculars.


It spirals languidly.
The path traced is like an uncoiled spring- stretched lengthwise.

Some of the turns are big.

Some overlapping.
Like a twisted helix headed downstream, but in no hurry.
Perhaps tired of its rodent fare, is it trying to fish?
Far away from its compatriots hanging out by the field,
Half a dozen of them visible on each side of the road- hopping on the ground like crows.

I hear trains in the distance.
Across the Columbia.
Carting two by fours and crude.
And hear traffic too.

Unh. Unh. Unhkrkkh. Unhrrkooo.
Air being expelled through vocal cords sitting in a slender neck
In the opposite direction to the direction of flight.
Silhouettes of C's and U's flying towards me.
From another state across the river.
One flock veers to my right. Too far for my telephoto lens.
Another veers to my left.
Necks extended.
These are not herons.
I snap a few pictures with one eye shut.
I lower my camera.
And peer with both my eyes through the binoculars.
I spot the red on their head, and my elated vocal chords concur- Sandhill Cranes.

I ponder about long necks.
About slender bodies and long stilts for wading.
And stockier bodies, and webbed feet for swimming.
And ponder about insulation and the arctic cold.

What is the difference between the tundra swans and the trumpeter swans?
I look at the pictures in the guidebook when I get home and cannot make up my mind?
If only there had been an expert to tell me which was which.
Can birds be memorized like multiplication tables?
Some people do it with seemingly effortless ease.
Do I need to mug these things up?
To tell the difference?
I saw a flock of swans in flight that soared above the flat former floodplain fields?
What if I am happy with less information?
With watching the wonder of flight, and pondering about evolution
Without going into the details about which exact bird it was.
Does detail take away the joy, or does it add to it?
Is it incidental or is the main course?
Does one slog for 10,000 hours or should it come effortlessly?

Canada geese in formation.

I see them nearly everyday.

But, I am happy to see them.

Flying overhead in the largest flocks.

They are still rarer than the flocks of cars flooding our streets.

Not a bunch of four ducks fluttering overhead with fast wing beats.

But a familial bunch with strong family values.

Even if I know that they are supposedly the resident evils who wander from one pond to another.

For truly, is it them that are overpopulated or is it us humans?

I was stopped by the road.
Having snapped up closeups of golden crown sparrows.
On a branch nearby.
Bathing in a puddle by the side of the road.
Having snapped the assiduous downy woodpecker, who methodically clambered up the branch of each tree on the road.
And did not fly away from me, even when it was 6 feet away.
Having snapped up a red-tail hawk calmly waiting on a branch.

When you flew in, my dear kestrel.
I saw your shape gliding in.
Not a robin - I thought.
You flew below the hawk on the branch straight towards me.
Silently like an owl.
And then veered to the right and disappeared into a forest of bare winter branches.
The only shot I got was out of focus, imperfect, unlike the others- but it was yet beautiful.
I snared you in flight- unlike the others who were sitting on a branch.
They were bipeds, rooted to the ground.
Sans movement.
I wish I were soaring over Sauvie too!