At around the eighteen mile mark of what ended up a 22 mile ride, I was cruising along in a meditative, eyes-ahead state of relaxed tunnel vision on a recently paved road when, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. My immediate interpretation of the motion was "newspaper blowing in gusty wind."
It was a gusty day after all, a blustery sun & cloud afternoon, a classic Sunday in early October New England.
But it wasn't a newspaper.
The moment unfolded rapidly. From the instant I noticed the movement, to the synapse firing in my brain that immediately tried to decipher the movement, to the point at which I actually realized what was happening and responded, was nearly instantaneous.
The newspaper was actually a hawk on the sidewalk (later I supposed it had made a play for a local squirrel or perhaps a house sparrow, flocks of which cavort in the hedges and the lot edges of neighborhoods all over Woo City). It was trying to take off, and the movement I saw as I was nearly abreast of it was it hopping & flapping to get some lift-off. By the point at which I realized with crystal clarity what was really happening, I had already instinctively reacted and ducked.
The hawk lofted into flight with a mighty lunge and barely missed my hunched shoulder as I raced past. Less than a second of reaction time separated cyclist-knocked-to-pavement-by-raptor and
holy-shit-near-collision-with-hawk. We both got away with our dignity.
Parting Shot
 |
| Kendall Reservoir, Holden, MA October 4, 2015 |
Holy crumb Shadman! Near collision with bird of prey! Grateful that you are whole - I imagine big feathery thing clunking me on the side of my head would send me to the pavement, though I don'T think they're all that heavy. In fact in the sauna at the fitness studio on Tuesday afternoon I was sitting their dripping sweat and meditating and looking out the panorama window. The studio is up on top of a bluff. The view from the window is over treetops and off across the anonymous descants of non-urban Frankfurt: wooded slope, football field, highway, football field, wooded slope, apartment buildings, highway, windmills, clouds, crows, pidgeons ... and a hawk! perched atop a tree, drying its wings. I watched that thing for about 5 minutes. Seaeagle alias S C R o D
ReplyDeleteA red kite weighs maybe 2 pounds full-grown. Not too much, still enough to get me nervous. Males are smaller than females. Interestingly the deep-sea angler fish male is a dwarf that lives on the much larger female. saves effort in thinly populated trenches. Of course the male scrod is enormous. S.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. The male scrod is enormous. A trophy fish. And deft in the water, like a shark, but a vegan one.
DeleteThe vegan scrod!! I be flooded with boozy ideas of the tale of the vegan scrod cum hawker of lame excuses and verbal trail balloons. To which I can add: my use of "descants" was worth 3 points! Accodding to reliable online authorities, a "descant" is a line of melody accompanying some other line of music, usually medieval in contrivance. "The anonymous descants of Frankfurt"! That works Dubstoyevsky. I be up by 1 and the clock is running down. SCROD
ReplyDeleteYou mad finning scaled monster! "Descant" is, indeed, a righteous vocab word. What, do you teach English or something? You are a polymath, of this I have no doubt. You can wax poetic on the Bundesliga (sp?) and transition straight into Patti Smith and possibly the Hapsburgs. I tip my dorsal to you!
Delete