The red-tailed hawk teaches a lesson in serendipity.

It was a nice morning.  The air was still cool under the trees just east of the Nature Center at the North Park Village Nature Center.  Daytime temperature were running into the mid-90s, but here it was still the cool of the day.

I headed out eastward on the main loop, camera ready.  I learned the hard way to be ready.  The Vegetable Kingdom generally acts but slowly in our terms.  The Animal Kingdom, has, shall we say, a mind of its own. 

My late father used to say that we do not learn so much from our good experiences as from our bad experiences. 

One day last March I decided not to bother taking my camera out of its bag, but rather, to just walk and take it all in.  This resolve lasted until I got to the man made hill, the east berm, at the east end of the east pond.  The berm is maybe 15 feet high at the north end where I was walking.  The day was overcast, but not cold for early spring.

There was a big bird!  From the north, about level with my feet, came a red-tailed hawk, just kind of gliding past.  I fumbled madly with the camera bag, then with the camera, then lens-cap, the strap, the switch...and it was all over.  My camera was ready and the hawk was disappearing into the stand of trees south of the berm.

So I keep my camera ready.

The morning of April 12th, 2012 was cool and brilliant.  Walking in the nature preserve was refreshing, full of the rebirth of life and hope for the new year of growth.  There were buds on the trees and green shoots coming up from the rich, Midwestern soil which I dutifully recorded.  Out of the corner of my eye, my brain registered something to my right, moving upward and quickly.  There was no time to aim so I just pointed the camera and kept shooting. 

It was a pair of red-tailed hawks.  My presence had disturbed them in a patch of prairie.  They had been rising from the ground when I first saw them, so I would guess I had disturbed their breakfast, or, more likely, that they were sizing one another up as possible mates.



Red-tailed hawks in flight: April 12th, 2012

And history sometimes repeats.   Perhaps a better way to put this is that fortune favors the prepared.  On August 23rd, I was walking north on the east berm in nearly the same place where I had seen the red-tailed hawk in March, but this time with camera in my hand and ready.  Something told me that I was moving too fast, so I stopped and scanned the trees behind me and...


there was a red-tailed hawk, sitting on a tree branch near the south end of the east berm.  Fortunately, I was able enlarge this image to get a better look




Red-tailed hawk on a branch:  August 23rd, 2012

A moment later, the hawk flew off the branch and disappeared into a stand of trees to the right.

Now for a strange denouement.  I posted the above story this morning at 9:41 AM.
By 3:00 PM this afternoon, the red-tailed hawks over in the Nature Center Park had gotten the word that I had posted their pictures on my blog.  They decided that they liked the publicity and sent one of their younger representatives over to tell me.

The following photos were taken in front of my house at 4:02 PM today. 

 

 I was sitting in my living room, about half a mile (one kilometer) from the east berm where the red-tailed hawk let me take his picture in August.  I was reading.  I noticed that a car had stopped in front of my house, and he was just sitting there.  So I looked up.  The driver was looking intently at something.  What?  I went to the window.  In the time it takes you to read this sentence, I was out in front of my house with my camera ready to shoot.

 

This bird seems to be young,  he forgot to tuck in one of his breast feathers before he left his house today and he does seem to be a bit confused.  How do I know it's a guy?  Don't ask...

Red-tailed hawk:  September 16th, 2012, across the street from my house.

 
I suspect that you are a bit confused about the geography of the park where most of this blog has taken place.  I'll try to clarify the layout and the language I use to describe it.  Here a map of the North Park Village Nature Center , reprinted by permission.


You may also want to check out www.maps.google.com.
 
Search for North Park Village Nature Center in Chicago, Illinois. 

If you have trouble narrowing your choices, use the address:  5801 North Pulaski Road.

You will see that NPVNC is entirely within the boundaries of the city of Chicago in a relatively low density urban environment.  There is a small industrial park to the west. Beyond the northern fence, across Peterson Avenue there are a high school and a convent.   The eastern side is defined by a public park with soccer fields, baseball diamonds, etc., and then houses. To the south, a cemetery and an urban university campus. 

The Nature Center staff also maintains a pretty little waterfall pond, and there is also an annex in the southeastern corner of the area.  Each of these two additional areas has a character of its own and path on which to explore it.