Terror

Behind our home is a street hidden by a 30-foot slope, but the street light is visible from our back deck.  During the summer we’ve been entertained by a mockingbird, singing all day and sometimes even at night.  He will sing for an hour then fly ten feet into the air, still singing and return to the street light.  While his singing cycle is now over, he still spends much of his time on the street light, just hanging out.

The other day, I was sitting on the deck and noticed a good-sized hawk sitting on a horizontal bar that holds the street light.  After a few minutes here comes our mockingbird and lands on his favorite perch.  He preens his feathers then looks to his left.  There two feet away sits this huge hawk.

Our mockingbird lets out a screech, opens his wings and falls off of the street light.  He didn’t remember to flap his wings until he was halfway to the ground.  In a few minutes a mockingbird returned, got no closer than ten yards from the hawk and then left.  I don’t know if it was the male (who almost had a nervous breakdown) coming back to see if the hawk was for real or if it was his mate coming to see if his story was true.

I laughed and then laughed even harder when I told the story to Aloma. 

Now I’m laughing again as I write this.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com