Tag: hawk

Things making me smile

Katharine Asals2 Comments

Things making me smile recently include…

The Lake. The lake, forever the lake.

Also.

An outing to the market, and an older fellow who I point at to draw his attention to the fact that we both are wearing plaid “shackets”, smiles and throws obscure accented phrases back at me. Twenty minutes later I see him again, walking the other way, and we both laugh and toss a few more cryptic phrases at each other – misunderstanding each other in words, but smiling all the way.

Lunch with a friend and she shows me her latest painting. The vibrant spirit of it. In a series of texts with another friend she sends me pix of various lanterns and light makers she’s been working on. The joy of sharing creative projects with friends who get it, friends who listen and remember, friends who say things that hit you sideways and help you think.

Still and again, in the middle of the day, this wholly absolutely irresistible tune –

The deep but quiet private joy, that for a few weeks now there’s been time to sketch on a daily basis, and the pleasure of surrendering to it, the daily question of what next, and of drawing and drawing and drawing…

Good drawings, bad drawings, whatever. Just drawing drawing drawing.

Hours spent at the little red kidney table by the windows, and for a moment around dusk, I look out at the sky beyond my table and whaddya know.

Circling.

A hawk.

The effortless soar. So high it’s hard to tell if it’s above the Gardiner or maybe floating above the park along Esplanade.

The joy of birds, of flight.

Earlier in the week, out by the water, by the sugar dock. Seagulls everywhere, thrilling to the scent of sugar in the air as a ship unloads.


Simple pleasures.

And then, in the midst of everything, absolutely every friggin thing going down in the strange strange world that is our modern existence, there is this hilarious yet deadly serious quote rediscovered:

Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.

~ Wendell Berry

Lens Artists – This Made me Smile

Heat in the city

Katharine Asals5 Comments

Waking up my son this morning and looking out the window into the little activities in the back yard – squirrels crossing on the squirrel highway of telephone wires, various birds here and there gathering food and such – the peaceful putterings are suddenly interrupted by the massive swoop of a hawk diving into the back yard beyond where the strange white dog lives.

A moment later the hawk is up, perched on the fence between the properties, lingering a moment, huge, and then he flies off, giant wings carrying him out of the yard, a small brown shape clutched in his talons.  A mouse?  A bird?  Looks too small for a mouse, so perhaps a robin as they are plentiful in these yards.

Last summer I remember O, the (ex)husband, saying he’d seen a hawk swoop into the back yard and catch a pigeon one day when he was home – so it seems they do go in for birds.  And perhaps it is the same hawk.

The presence of a hawk wouldn’t be surprising of course if we lived out in the burbs, near fields or a marsh, but we are right downtown.  Just 2 weeks ago there was a shooting at the gelateria around the corner – the memorial flowers are still wilting outside the cafe where the man died.

Talking with my boy after the fact we figure this must be a good yard for hungry birds and animals in the city.   There’s so many trees the woodpeckers like the range of insect sources, the squirrels and birds have been feasting on the saskatoon-berry tree for weeks.  Someone a couple of yards down seems to have a crabapple tree cause the squirrels drop half-eaten little apples as they pass by on squirrel highway.   All this fecundity, the well-fed life must be appealing for the larger birds of prey as well.

It is the beginning of a hot day here – hot for us Canadian types at least.  34 degrees now in the early afternoon and rising, but with the humidity feels like 40-something.

In the hammock with the camera, seeking out birds in the trees I realize they are hot too, their beaks open, panting.

The sprinkler seems like a good idea for everyone – for the plants, all a little parched and shrivelled from so many days without rain, for the birds if they dare come near the sprinkler….

And they do, having a veritable sprinkler party, flying and darting through the water, catching the lower streams in their beaks and drinking, splashing around in the puddles forming in the dips and valleys in the earth.