Hawk Moments

Sometime, a couple of winter's ago, I discovered that if I miss my bus, I can hike through a little dual-park system to catch an alternative that gets me into town 15 minutes later. This last winter, I realized that the alternative route doubles back to a point just a little but farther than the normal alternastop, about six minutes later, so this last semester has been a lot about carefully managed morning procrastination. How much later can I leave from normal, and still catch the alternabus.

One time, in February, when I was feeling stressed out about my impending qualifying exams, I was walking a portion of this bath, and noticed a great number of red birds amongst the dessicated shrubbery. Not entirely unusual, but still noticeable. As I walked further I noticed a stump, not five feet from the path, that I hadn't seen before. I stopped, and realized the stump had an eye, a rather piercing one. It was a hawk, and the closest I'd ever been to one.

I'm pretty sure that it was watching the cardinals as a tasty treat. I wonder if it actually went down that way. After stopping to stare for a minute, I had to leave to catch my bus. Since then, I've felt a lot like one of the red birds.