Yesterday, a great blue heron flew over me as I biked. Then two hawks swooped over a runner ahead of me. Recently, a hawk flew along with me, just above my head, on my bike for several seconds. Then it alighted on a pole just in front of me. While it sat there, another hawk flew to a treetop about 70 feet away and landed. This second hawk kept calling and whistling at the first hawk for about 5 minutes. This reminded me of when a tern had stayed right above my head while I was paddling a kayak. A friend said that while he was bicycling north towards Lyons at 5 am, a nighthawk flew along with him right above his head . Once a friend and I found a goose tangled in fishing line next to shore. I got a knife, put my shirt over its head, and pulled it in to cut off the line. After that, I kept noticing geese everywhere. On a kayak lesson, one goose kept us company as we went down the river, all day. Maybe is was for food, as the class would stop at the same park at midday to eat. Maybe it is a coincidence. But I felt there might be a connection. Maybe the birds are curious. Jack Turner in his book, The Abstract Wild, says the white pelicans whistle and sing, gyriing a mile above the Grand Teton- for joy. Doug Peacock writes of (and shows in his documentary film) how a young grizzly bear plays with pieces of ice floating in a spring-time pool. The bear pushes the ice blocks under the water, watches them pop up, then pushes them down again. Kenneth White, in his poetry book, The Most Difficult Area, says that he found a rare rosy gull on the beach in Scotland. The only other time it had been seen in Great Britain was on the day of his birth. He wrote that it seemed strange to think there was a connection, yet he would feel foolish if he didn't believe there was a some connection.
