2018 has been a hard year for a lot of people, myself included. Looking back, it’s also been a productive year. In 2018 I:
Shoulder is healing nicely. I won’t do that again.
Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!
I have another addition to my series on familiars at Moon Books Blog. This article weighs the pros and cons of various animal familiars. Check it out!
The Broad-Winged Hawk is a medium sized migrating hawk that summers mostly in eastern North America. It is usually spotted in groups or pairs circling overhead on the air currents, especially during migration.
I heard the piercing cry of the Broad-Winged Hawk in the forest earlier this week, then saw the bird darting through the upper tree branches. Despite the idiosyncratic whistle, I was confused, never having spotted the bird in the forest and never having seen a solitary bird. I did some research and, sure enough, this is a forest dwelling hawk, proficient at flying between trees. In my area, it nests in May and June. This week, the trees just began leafing here.
I interpret an encounter with a nesting bird as a sign of productivity, the opposite of goalless drifting. It shows effort directed toward achievement. Though the Broad-Winged is not a large hawk, it is remarkable that it can navigate through thick forest, and this points to nourishment of a difficult goal. This is a common hawk uncommonly spotted in home territory doing its main work of raising young, indicating a rare glimpse at hidden progress.
This was my second encounter with a Broad-Winged in a week, as a few days earlier a found a wing feather in a different forest. The feather prepared me to consider my second meeting seriously and reflect on its meaning.
Moon Books now has a multi-site blog for its authors and I will be blogging there occasionally too. Check out my autobiographical (sortof) piece.
