The Eagle Has Landed

The Eagle Has Landed

Birds are a big part of our life here on the hilltop. We have had a whole quail episode up here on Quail View Drive and the quail were quickly adopted by Kim via large bags of quail food from the local feed store. We were aware that bunnies and squirrels also like the quail food, but we figured that so long as the diners list did not expand to rats, opossums and skunks, we were all good. I have no way of knowing whether rattlesnakes even go near quail food, but after two early season rattlers caught and killed on the hardscape, Kim decided that she liked encouraging rattlesnakes a lot less than she liked feeding the quail, so the quail soup kitchen closed for good. I have replaced all the food in the ceramic feeders with nice greenish pebbles sold for ornamental value in planters and aquariums. It’s a nice look and I rely on the notion that all the critters have well enough developed sense of smell to not swallow a mouthful of pebbles.

Hummingbirds are equally thematic up here. Our big kitchen picture window has several hummingbird feeders right in front of it, but to be honest I think we see more hummingbirds in and amongst the gardens, competing for nectar with the panoply of bees around us at all times. The Irish Strawberry tree attracts them and then they are drawn to whatever else is blooming at the moment, which in the Spring can range from all the cacti and succulents to the flowering desert bushes. We have added hummingbirds to our design theme as well. We have them on our Otomi garden wall mural. We also have them in stone on our patio mosaic table. they are life size there where the mural has them about 100X in size. Everyone loves hummingbirds, so I imagine they have their pick of the feeders in the neighborhood. We get our share, but they are very sociable and not so very loyal to our sugar water.

I have discussed the red tail hawks that soar over the ravines on the western downsloping side of the property off the deck. I have now adorned two boulders in the back with hawk silhouettes. One is mid-flight and one is landing with talons bared. I like to think that I am honoring the hawks and making them feel at home, but really I am just expressing some pent up visual artistic desires which have found themselves onto a few rocks in brown paint. We see the hawks every day and on some days we see them in an aerial dogfight with some other bird, often the doves that inhabit the area. I am no birdwatcher, but I know a hawk from a hummingbird and the doves are unmistakable because they have that pidgeon-like look and that soothing cooing sound about them.

Another bird we see a fair bit out here are the infamous roadrunner of Wile E. Coyote Looney Tunes fame. They only appear once in a while and are always solo, very unlike the doves. We mostly see them on the driveway and the road, but once in a while I see them in the yard somewhere. I once saw one in the Cecil Garden, but only momentarily. That roadrunner lit out down the southern steps and across the back hillside faster than I could ever imagine, even as a (beep-beep) devotee of the Roadrunner cartoons. I literally blinked, wondering if I was seeing properly. I watched it directly and still couldn’t tell you if that bird flew or ran. Supposedly it is flightless, but when the Flash of D.C. Comics fame runs, he really flies…and this roadrunner did the same.

And let’s not forget the owls. The other night when I took Betty out into the dark of the patio in the middle of the night, I heard that familiar hooting of a Great Horned Owl. It continues to keep the barn owls away and keeps our lovely beige owl house behind the garage vacant and available…but for barn owls only.

Our deck has become a venue of some drama for birds we have encountered. I have told the story about the hawk who nabbed the pidgeon, only to find that he could not carry his prey and fly at the same time. That particular red tailed hawk must have flunked basic flight aerodynamics, or else he was simply too hungry for his own good. Last Spring we also has a sparrow nest in our Palapa that Kim called Brad in to stabilize. It did no good and the sparrow family moved on rather than deal with us.

This year we may not have barn owls or sparrows (though several were fluttering around the palapa today and may find it a good spot to raise their family yet). But in the process of taking the time to look at the bird activity on the Western side of the house, I noticed that our massive eagle sculpture that sits on the Juliet Balcony off our Master Bedroom had become the protector of a set of doves that were nesting. I first noticed a smallish male dove with some wiry grass in his beak. I told Kim that he must be looking for a place to nest. She then said that actually, she thought they had already found one. Sure enough, in between the oversized metal feet of the eagle sculpture, sat a mother dove warming up her nest for what would soon likely be a set of dove eggs. There is something so very special about the protective and collegial image of our guardian eagle that watches over the hawk activities on the hillside, standing guard over the meek doves while they try to procreate.

It has that “big brother” feel to it in a bird-like sense. The eagle is the symbol of national strength and solid righteousness. At least that is what I think of when I see the American Eagle. I know that the Third Reich and the Roman Legions marched under the banner of the eagle and that it is said it is a heraldic symbol implying the hereditary power of the elite. But I don’t ever think of the American use of the symbolic eagle as meaning such un-American ideals. Rather, it stands as a symbol of supreme power and authority that balances the olive branch of peace and the arrows of war. I know which I prefer and that is what makes me happy for the eagle to stand to protect the doves of peace at its feet.

I know that hawks have to be hawks and that hawks deserve the ability to feed their young as predators just as doves feed their young. I am not so sure that a hawk feeding its young fresh dove meat is all that different from a dove feeding its young fresh worm meat. I guess its easier to like and want to protect a dove than it is to like and want to protect a worm, but its unclear which does more to help and balance the ecology of the hillside. It am greatly troubled by the natural order, but not so troubled that I have become a vegetarian. So, I’m not sure that I have a right to do more than ponder the imagery of nature as the doves hunker down in the shadow of the proud eagle. The eagle may have landed and the eagle may also have stood to honor the meek, but if this eagle were of flesh and blood and not merely a symbol of natural artistry and studied strength, it is not clear those doves would be so anxious to be within a quick talon length of its sharp and undiscerning claws and hungry beak. Art may imitate nature, but it may also imbue it with false traits. I am in search of an eagle with grace rather than nature as its guide and I’m not so sure that exists.