I’ve walked through prairies before. I knew that pheasants and other birds of the quail persuasion hunker down until you get close, then fly up into your face, shocking you. I knew this. But it happened anyway. I was making my way through knee-high weeds and BAM, a burst of flapping wings. It was a Ring-Necked Pheasant shooting up and flying away. Before I could calm down, it happened again: ANOTHER big bird flapped out of the same spot in the weeds, shocking me again. But it was no pheasant; it was a Red-Tailed Hawk. The pheasant went left and the hawk went right. Suddenly it was quiet. At my feet there was a scatter of soft feathers and red, shining blood. I guess the hawk was on the pheasant and just digging in when I came along. The pheasant seemed okay; its flight was strong and it disappeared into the distance. The hawk went to a nearby treetop and glowered at me. Tough birds, both of them. I figured I’d helped the pheasant. Then I realized I’d interfered with the hawk’s meal. What was I? Rescuer, or pain in the butt? Neither. I was just another agent of chance.
Dear A. Pachino. The title of the post you commented about is “A shocking sighting…” And we gotta say, seeing a comment about it in 2024 when the post appeared in the innocent first year of the site–2009–is a “shocking sighting,” too. But that’s much like birdwatching itself–sightings are unpredictable and happen when they’re gonna happen. Cool.
I am writing about your 2009 post in the uniaginable future year of 2024, no kidding, and I’m doing this because I’ve been rumaging through your old posts, the ones at the beginning of two-fisted when it was a start-out blog with few pictures and just words about birdwatching adventures given in good faith to whoever stumbled across them. In 2009 you guys, or nobody really, imagined that your site would still be pumping out cool stories and more in the far future–which is, at this moment, today. But your old post about the pheasant and the hawk should not go under the radar forever; it’s too damn well told and interesting and relatable to those of us who walk through fields and see the kinds of things you saw. Just sayin’