I took a drive through Indian Valley on Tuesday. The valley was gorgeous, with all the grasses turning yellow-gold and the sky powder blue and filled with marching cumulus clouds. I turned on the old Stampfli pioneer road that cuts through the valley, and noticed a red tailed hawk on the ground in a field. We stopped to see the prey it had caught. When he saw us, he hopped/ran to take off but couldn’t. A broken right wing. So I fussed with my cell phone (terrible reception) and eventually got 911 and the name/phone of a contact in Westwood that does raptor rescue. Couldn’t reach them, and drove home, thinking about the fate of the hawk. So, I called again from home and got through to the raptor rescue woman. She couldn’t make the drive to pick him up, but told me to take him to the Chester Vet Clinic if I was able.
So….back into the car for a nice hour drive back to Indian Valley. Couldn’t find the hawk but knew he had to be there in the field somewhere. Took a box and my dad’s tough, beautifully woven WWII Army blanket and marched into the field…fortunately, no cows. From the valley I could see the deep V in the mountains that marks the entrance to the Feather River canyon that drops sharply down into the flat California central valley. The wind was whipping up from the mouth of the canyon into and across the field. Scanning through the grasses I spotted movement of a dark object on the ground. It was the injured hawk, a bit more subdued after an afternoon in the baking sun and erratic winds. I held the blanket over him, using the wind to create a tent, then slowly brought it down and folded him inside the box. He was so light. He didn’t struggle or cry out. Back to the car we went, at which point the hawk attempted an escape. What pain it must have caused him. I wrapped more blankets around the box and took off for the vet’s office. It was 4 o’clock and about 45 minutes away.
Five minutes into the drive, the hawk popped up in the back of the car, having slipped between the box and blankets. There he was perched on the edge of the box as I drove 50 MPH down the road. It was an interesting excursion. Would he attempt to fly? Cars whizzed by. Did they see what was inside? I wonder what the hawk thought as the scenery passed at a level and angle that must have been very unfamiliar. I reached the vet’s office with 10 minutes to spare. He was x-rayed and put in a quiet spot. I haven’t checked to see if the wing break was simple enough to warrant the hawk’s salvation. It would take several months of feeding lab mice to it and preparing it for release – a big job. At least he will not suffer from exposure and a slow death. And, he was beautiful to be close to, even in his pain.
Photo of Red Tailed Hawk by Buff & Jerry Corsi
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dram, the dawns ruin it.
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.
You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance. I gave him the lead gift in the twilight. What feel was relaxed,
Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.
-- Robinson Jeffers, 1928
HURT HAWKS
1
The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dram, the dawns ruin it.
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.
You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.
2
I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtailHad nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance. I gave him the lead gift in the twilight. What feel was relaxed,
Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.
-- Robinson Jeffers, 1928
