casing the joint

A smallish hawk landed in one of our backyard trees yesterday.

He was pretty, but my brother chased an unsuspecting squirrel out of his way. Let him work a little harder to find food.

That reminds me of a story. Way back in the late 1980s, we got a book in at the library called Merlin, by Norma Lorre Goodrich. It was a scholarly work about the legendary mentor of King Arthur, and I always loved the Arthurian stories. Her conclusions were that he was a Christian bishop or something, and all the legends just rose up and became embellished over the centuries. She wrote one about Arthur too - I gobbled them both up (but they were very dry, I have to say).

Anyway, I remember it was winter. I was immersed in this book, dry as it was. Looked out one day (it was a Sunday - I remember!) and there was a small hawk on top of the bird feeder. He sat there about an hour. At that time, I was beginning to get an interest in indentifying birds, and I grabbed our field guide for birds.

It was a merlin.  A merlin!  I felt like he had come to visit me while I was reading about him! Such a funny coincidence. He hung around for a week or so, sitting on a short stockade fence on the side of the house; right outside my bedroom window, in fact.

One of those odd things that happen sometimes.