48 ~ Down syndrome

This is the season for down (just not in jackets).  I am most pleased to relay that I first noticed some a couple of weeks ago on the eagle nest – down attached to a small wobbly head.  And so despite the loss this past winter of what was probably the male eagle to lead poisoning, and a delay in egg laying as the female pair-bonded anew, at least one egg made it through. Out of difficult times, and despite some grief of loss, a resilient return to something like normalcy - strike anyone as an apt, or at least hopeful, metaphor for the world in spring of 2021…?

I next noticed a downy chick on a Red-tailed Hawk nest across the road from the house.  I have a spotting scope trained on the nest from a second floor window, and watched the female incubating in April and May.  I’ve checked in on her most mornings, and what a fine model and inspiration she’s been for meditation: that brown-eyed beauty sitting quietly yet alert, and wishing to be nowhere else or doing nothing else but that. Holding the world in perfection by sitting still.

On a recent morning I noticed she sat a bit more elevated than normal, a sign that it was no longer eggs she was protecting and keeping warm.  On a mild sunny day that followed, she stood aside on the nest’s edge and through the scope I could just see the likes of a dandelion puff (the sort that are currently passing themselves off as my lawn) – the downy white head of a chick.  

Since then, Junior (it looks also to be just one chick on this nest) has been growing well, and is now pushing wing feathers through his down. I’ll keep you updated as Junior and his eaglet neighbor down the road continue to grow.  They live not far apart, but I don’t expect them to become playmates.  In fact, Junior Red-tail needs to take care in where he wanders once he’s on the wing.  Here’s a juvenile Red-tail that got appropriately weeded from the gene pool by a nesting Bald Eagle. One can only wonder, what was this young Red-tail thinking??  Apparently not much. Warning: graphic content, here.

Dear reader, late spring is the busiest period in my annual cycle of provisioning myself (e.g., gardens, trout, morels). I’m so busy doing it, I have less time to write and reflect about it. Please bear with as and if my posting volume temporarily dips. Thanks.

Stay well. This past year we, too, have been down, but far from out.

While we’re on the subject: What I’ve read and can recommend:

Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell (1933).

A memoir (and social commentary), Orwell’s first book, and fantastic. What I like in particular are his tales of making ends meet (at least raggedly) by working as a plongeur (dishwasher) in restaurants in Paris. My first job at age 15 was also a plongeur in P…

…ewaukee.