Throughout my three-hour walk Tuesday morning, one filled with the glee of a young child exploring the adventures of a new Christmas gift, I toured the area around White Rock Lake as I allowed my eyes to feast—through the new camera—on every little thing imaginable, every tiny spec of color and movement that caught my attention.
From Winfrey Point to Pelican Island and back to Sunset Bay, I lost myself in what I had so missed: long, carefree, unencumbered walks through this urban wildlife refuge. It felt like rediscovering an old friend, one lost to work and chores, yet one never forgotten and oft longed for.
When finally I reached Stone Tables, the place where I once discovered the hard-to-find black-bellied whistling-ducks, I walked to that magical place where so much wildlife goes unnoticed for the antics of children in the playground, parties at the pavilion, and mindless people busying themselves with human cares.
What other spectacle might it offer me?
The floodplain held its usual hidden bath for avian visitors, a large swath of frozen ground ankle-deep in water. Around it six common ravens (Corvus corax) flitted to and fro, each in search of breakfast, and not one of them paying attention to me. I approached stealthily, at least as much as a human can, and tried snapping a few photos.
With the camera held to my face, everything outside the viewfinder became unseen.
I took several photos of these large crows. All the while, they tarried with their morning meal.
Finally it was time to move on, so I lowered the camera. That’s when I saw it swooping in overhead: a juvenile red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) soared in on soundless wings, a shadow against the clear blue sky. Its sights were set on one of the ravens.
It passed quite near me, very low to the ground, and homed in on its prey even as the ravens carelessly ignored its approach.
Only at the last minute did a few of them squawk in terror and take flight, and only then did the intended target realize the looming danger already swept to within striking distance. It quickly fell to one side as the hawk reached its position. I felt I would witness its demise.
But the raven only had to move a short distance to escape the predator, and it did just that. And upon meeting the sudden vacuum, the hawk turned skyward again in time to miss the ground by a breath. Its sudden departure even drew dead leaves into the air in its wake.
Without a single flap of its wings, the hawk veered into the sky, effortlessly gliding between dense branches, and erupted into the heavens like a god.
The ravens—all six of them—were hot on its tail.
Unfortunately for crows, a hawk is much faster than they are, so they reached the tops of the trees only after their attacker had already soared quite a distance toward the lake, all the while moving upward with great skill.
What a raucous cacophony the ravens made as they protested the intruder’s interruption of their breakfast—and their sense of safety.
I walked away grateful for the show, a man caught in the spell of nature unfolding.
[note one could assume the predator was an adult Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii); size and coloration would be similar to a juvenile red-tailed hawk; however, I don’t believe an adult Cooper’s would attempt predation of an adult raven, especially one milling about with five friends; a full-grown raven is half the size of an adult Cooper’s hawk, and it certainly is more maneuverable; not only that, but an adult Cooper’s certainly would have learned the danger involved in attacking a single large crow in the midst of several of its brethren; a juvenile red-tailed, however, would likely not care about such lessons, let alone be familiar with them]