THUD

The hanging tray on the left side of the
above picture is often covered
with birds feeding on the
black oil sunflower seeds,

Sunday past as I was just sitting down to read a bit on a riveting note I heard a horrifying THUD. I knew, I knew, I knew a rather large bird had hit a window. From the loud THUD I knew indeed a rather large bird had hit one of our long narrow windows looking out onto our patio. On the opposite side of the patio our bird feeders hang from a stand. We have a plethora of birds that come to feed intermittently from sun up to sun set. 

Rushing out to the patio I saw a young Cooper's hawk laying on the left side of the granite that surrounds the gas grill after colliding with one of the long narrow windows. With Rescue Remedy augmented with lavender essential oil spray I ever so slowly approached the hawk. The hawk scrambled up and hopped onto the grass since s(he) was unable to fly. S(he) was having nothing but nothing to do with me!

The reflections in the window
of the hedge and tree across the patio.
The young Cooper's hawk no doubt thought s(he)
was flying into a hedge to hide out to catch
a snack from the bird feeder.

I called the Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue. Within a half hour, since we are located not far from their facility, two women arrived. Our backyard is quite small but it took them both with nets about fifteen minutes to capture the hawk. Once the hawk was safely contained in a small carrying cardboard container they departed.  

Several days later I received a call informing me the hawk's wing had received no severe damage such as a broken wing . . . whew!!! what a relief. They believed the wing was bruised from the collision. They planned to keep the hawk for another week to be sure its flight was no longer affected from its window collision. As I was writing this post the aforementioned hawk was released on our street.

The focus here has been to get ourselves settled into a house with much deferred maintenance. Installing Zen wind curtains on the two long narrow windows, the only windows that do not have screens, has not happened. In fact, until the hawk hit the window I totally neglected to access the windows to see if protecting them from bird collisions was needed in this house as we have done in our two previous homes. I feel so bad that I did not! Oh my gosh it took a Cooper's hawk hitting one of the unscreened windows to awaken me to action. 

Dwight measured and ordered two Zen wind curtains. This company acts immediately. The day following our ordering, they arrived.

As you can see in the above picture
the reflection is interrupted 
with the Zen wind curtains
which sway in the breeze.

It is lovely indeed, it is lovely indeed.

I, I am the spirit within the earth.

The feet of the earth are my feet,

The legs of the earth are my legs.

The strength of the earth is my strength,

The thoughts of the earth are my thoughts,

The voice of the earth is my voice.

The feather of the earth is my feather,

All that belongs to the earth belongs to me,

All that surrounds the earth surrounds me.

I, I am the sacred works of the earth.

It is lovely indeed, it is lovely indeed.

SONG OF THE EARTH SPIRIT,

NAVOAJO ORIGIN LEGEND

May we each and every one of us feel our connection with and honor our Mother Earth. As we do so let us often