Red-Shouldered Hawks
First, a quick note to say I'm unfortunately going to postpone releasing Volume 2 of my indie game recs zine for a couple of days. This weekend ended up being busier than I expected and I didn't get around to finishing it. I should have it posted sometime this week!
On our walk with Ranni yesterday, Danny and I saw a red-shouldered hawk. It was right next to the path, perched on a low-hanging tree branch. I snapped a photo of it with my phone:
I have a special love for red-shouldered hawks, and I've often considered getting one as a tattoo. There's a bit of a story behind it.
From about 2016-2022, I lived with my parents. I was struggling at the time, both financially and mentally, and moving in with my parents for a few years was exactly what I needed. I was able to save money and to spend time finding a good psychiatrist who eventually diagnosed me with bipolar I and OCD.
My mental illness had been getting worse throughout the years, and it really came to a head at that time, so it was important for me to have a support system while I sought help and got on medication. My parents were there for me when I needed them, while I was at my absolute worst, and I'll forever be grateful to them for that.
My parents are definitely not rich, but they live in a rural area outside the city on a sizable piece of land. Besides the medication, I really feel that nature was my main source of healing during that time, because I was able to help in their garden, ride my bike around, and watch birds.
At the edge of their backyard is a forest filled with tall pine trees that seem like they've been growing for ages toward the sky. Every spring, a red-shouldered hawk nested at the top of one of those pines. My dad has always loved birds, and he has a pair of binoculars designed for birding. We'd watch through them as the hawk hatched her eggs, sitting in her nest on the brightest days and the darkest, when the stormiest weather caused the tree to sway precariously back and forth.
Every year, she had 1-3 baby hawks. After they were hatched, we would watch as she and her mate brought them food, hearing their calls echo through the trees. Over the course of a couple of months, we'd watch the babies grow from fluffy chicks to full-grown hawks, flying around the yard and hunting for themselves until they finally left the nest area and flew away to start their own adult lives.
Watching the hawks was a constant. It heralded spring, which in those years felt, more than ever, like a new season of growth. It brought a lot of comfort to my parents and me. Even during COVID, the hawks were there.
Oddly enough, the year I left my parents' house was when the mother hawk stopped visiting her nest. I'm not sure what happened, whether she found a new nesting site or got too old for it. She was there when I needed her, and then we both moved on. I'll never forget her, and those years were defined by her presence, in a way.
Nature truly is healing and wondrous and beautiful, if you only stop to look.