Daytime yearns to reach noon.  Cloudless blue stretches across the sky in all directions giving way to bright sunshine that blankets the earth.  A warm breeze from the south carries with it yet more humidity, moisture added to an already hot and moist atmosphere.  Despite the early hour, summer temperatures reign.  I stand and let sunshine and gently moving air caress my skin.

Remaining motionless, I quietly listen to birds singing in a cacophony of warbles, trills and melodies.  Their songs carry on the wind and fill the day with life.  Sweeping through the sky in graceful gestures and abrupt maneuvers, they flit from tree to rooftop to tree.  Innumerable species abound in this place, each a master of its own destiny and each blessed with the enviable gift of flight.  Their freedom in the air gives way to wistful fantasies of joining them.  I dream of leaping from the ground and finding my way into the firmament without need of clunky mechanical machines.  Ah, what a wonderfully intoxicating thought.

Overhead, a hawk glides effortlessly into sight as it swims through the atmosphere upward into the sky, a raptor taking its place in the heavens in preparation for the hunt.  Mockingbirds chase the predator as it climbs ever higher.  Only a few times do they come close enough to interfere with the ascent, but the hawk recovers quickly with minor course corrections and continues becoming a speck at heights normally reserved for the clouds.  In great sweeping circles it rises without ever flapping its wings.  Like humans sticking their hand out the window of a moving car and letting the wind blow through splayed fingers, I see the hawk’s wings and recognize the outstretched feathers at their tips.  What a magnificent hunter this creature is, what a splendid example of conservation of energy in seeming contradiction to its movement.  I watch silently as the predator moves over the lake and eventually out of sight.

The fence surrounding my patio becomes my resting place as I lean against it.  With the sun kissing my skin and the breeze embracing me, I close my eyes momentarily and escape the world.  I imagine I am the hawk soaring high above.  I hang my head forward as my vision of the me-hawk takes shape.  I imagine myself carried on the wind and thermals, gliding effortlessly to heights above any challenger, my superior vision consuming all that can be seen.  On this day, not even clouds fight me for my place here.

Suddenly, the stir of activity across the way rouses me from my daydreaming and I open my eyes behind their cloak of sunglasses to see what I might see.  Sitting on her porch swing, one of my neighbors rests comfortably with book in hand in the shade of her own patio.  Her white ankle-length skirt hangs over her crossed legs and rustles casually in the gentle wind.  It, too, seems to enjoy the day and its lazy demeanor.  She sits back on the swing, her fitted light-blue blouse undoubtedly cool and relaxed against her skin.  I watch as she absently bounces one of her sandal-clad feet while it dangles in the air.  Slowly, almost unconsciously, her right hand moves and methodically turns the page, her attention swimming easily through the words spilling out before her.  How relaxing to see her carefree afternoon taking shape.

Her dog is perched beside her blithely enjoying this sedate existence.  He watches carefully as the birds flutter about and sing in trees only feet away from his position at her side.  Ever so gently, he rocks back and forth as she swings them in tiny movements of vast contentment.  He reacts from time to time as some new little thing happens, perhaps a squirrel or a bird venturing close enough to be of interest, perhaps even a leaf blowing by to which he might give chase.  They fail to spur him to more action than a simple glance, perhaps a muffled, halfhearted bark lacking sufficient energy to be threatening.  If he raises his head from its place resting on his crossed front legs dangling from the swing, it is only a brief movement, almost an afterthought before it begins.  He is her sentry, yes, but even he recognizes the lack of danger and uses the moment to shift his position only slightly so that he might be more comfortable and able to rest his head on her leg.  It is a loving movement, one of absolute trust, and I hear the deep breath and following sigh telling the world he’s in heaven.

She moves her right hand again, this time to the dog’s head, and she gently rubs and scratches him as his eyes close in absolute joy.  From this distance, I am still able to hear her loving words to him.

“Are you comfortable?”

“Good boy.”

“A nap sounds great, doesn’t it?”

He stretches his entire body into rigid writhing.  The movement is over as quickly as it begins.  All four of his paws now dangle off the swing, her leg providing a pillow for his head, and another deep breath and sigh tell me he is as happy as any dog can be.  She rubs his head and neck once more before reaching again to turn the page of her book.  Her eyes never leave the pages as she transfers the book into her right hand and reaches for her glass of iced tea with her left.

I watch only a moment more before returning my own gaze back to the sky and the overflowing nature around me.  Just before I close my eyes again, I see the hawk circling high above the lake.

[photos of a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)]

The preeminent hawk.  The hawk’s hawk.  The common and widespread buteo to which all other buteoine species are compared.  The red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).  Seeing one is never a surprise from Alaska south to Venezuela and out to Cuba and the Virgin Islands.

With up to 16 subspecies and considerable population and individual variation stretching throughout its geographic range, including both “light morph” and “dark morph” varieties across all groups, not every red-tailed hawk is recognized as such, especially by the casual observer.  Yet it’s safe to say that most large hawks seen in North America are in fact red-tailed hawks.

These predators live and breed at White Rock Lake, yearlong inhabitants who outnumber all other hawk species in the area.  I see them often, and they kettle^[1] in vast numbers that appear like a tornado made with birds.  I’ve seen many variations, including leucistic^[2] individuals, light and dark morphs, and adults and juveniles (between whom much plumage variation occurs).

However, the majority of the red-tailed hawks in this area fit in two subspecies, B. j. borealis and B. j. fuertesi.  So when one flew by me yesterday evening, it caught my attention as it looked nothing like our usual suspects.  In fact, my first impression called itself white-tailed hawk.  Why?  I stood facing into the setting sun when the bird soared by me, so I had blinding light in my face when the buteo landed in a nearby tree and showed white along the top third of its tail.

I laughed at myself.  White-tailed hawks do not travel this far north.  In fact, they hug the lower third of the Texas coast and become more numerous south of the Mexico border.  The last time I saw that species was in May when I visited the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

So what might this beast be?  I had to know.  And as I moved by it and into a better position to see it, I realized its rarity in this area and its singular beauty.  Rather than a white-tailed hawk, it was a white-headed hawk.  More specifically, it was a Krider’s red-tailed hawk.

Often confused with white-tailed and ferruginous hawks, the third and unexpected comparison hit me when two people ran over to celebrate their first-ever sighting of a bald eagle.  I stifled a laugh only because that thought had not occurred to me.  Though truthfully, I understood their assumption: dark(-ish) body, white head, large size, bird of prey.  Making the leap to bald eagle suddenly felt easy.  Nevertheless, to my mind it never stopped being a buteo, a large hawk.

I felt joy in explaining to the couple that the bird they looked at was as rare in Dallas as a bald eagle, but it was in fact not an eagle at all.  They listened intently as I pointed out a few differences and some of the telltale signs that indicated its true identity.  Not once did they look disappointed, for what their eyes rested on lost no magic and no beauty simply because its name changed.

Identifiable though it may be, the Krider’s red-tailed hawk is often listed as a “white morph” of B. j. borealis, the “typical red-tailed hawk” most people would recognize.  To explain a bit further, Cornell’s Birds of North America puts it like this:

B. j. “kriderii” does not have a breeding range distinct from those of other subspecies, meaning it cannot, by definition, be a valid subspecies; instead, its breeding range occupies the sw. portion of that of B. j. borealis, and it winters chiefly in the Great Plains.

That tickles me.  We define a subspecies as requiring “breeding range distinct” from other subspecies, hence a singular population of birds who occupy a predictable area and demonstrate predictable traits cannot be a subspecies since that population lives and breeds within the territory of another subspecies.  It amazes me sometimes how people become so hung up on anthropocentric limits that they cannot see how nature doesn’t care about our definitions.  Nature does what it does anyway, all without concern for our limitations.

Were Krider’s red-tailed hawks to be “by definition” a subspecies, I doubt the birds would notice.  They do not fill the territory of either subspecies with whom they are associated, but in fact they fill their own niche in the northern range of the Rocky Mountains.  They produce offspring who look like the parents that gave life to them, migrate to a definable area for winter and back to a predictable space for summer, and have repeatable and unquestionable physical traits that differentiate them from all other hawks, let alone all other buteos.

Despite semantic arguments, I and the couple who stood with me never once thought less of the bird.  Its stunning presence and unique visage offered to us a mystical evening with a creature we could not disregard.  So long as the hawk sat in the treetop, we watched, each of us mesmerized, enchanted, spellbound.  No matter what one might assume it to be, no matter how versed in or innocent of bird identification one might be, nothing about the encounter could be called mundane.

Never having seen this variety here in North Texas, I let it envelope me as a warm blanket might cloak me in winter’s cold.  I let the camera dangle by my side after only a handful of shots.  No matter its taxonomic disposition, this Krider’s red-tailed hawk will never be considered anything less than matchless, a nonpareil visitor who gave me an unexpected surprise—and a profound gift.

— — — — — — — — — —

Notes:

[1] ‘Kettling’ is the term used when hawks fly together and spiral upward on thermals in a group.  A kettle of hawks often is mistaken for circling vultures.  This activity occurs most often during autumnal and vernal migrations when a group of traveling hawks prepares to leave after resting and/or eating.

[2] Leucism is akin to partial albinism, except it is a reduction in all pigmentation types and not just melanin.  It manifests from minor loss of color to significant loss of color—and even to a total loss.  Unlike albinism, however, leucism results in pure white being left behind (whereas albinism results in pale yellows or other weak hues since melanin is turned off but other pigments are left on).