Sad and Glad

It's been a sad last few days for me. Last week we all heard the news about Michael Jackson, and later I found that Farrah Fawcett had lost her battle with Liver Cancer, and Ed McMahon has passed a few days before. Sunday while driving home from the lake, which is now nothing but a dried up river bed, literally, they drained the lake to fix the dam, and now its nothing but a foot wide little stream inside a mudbed. I wondered and worried about the wildlife which is rich in that area. Deer, bears, skunks, and other small creatures, not to mention the fish , which I wondered what happened to them? And also the birds that relied on the water for water and food (fish). All the Geese were gone and we didn't see the osprey we have had the pleasure of watching fish the last two times we've been there.

This picture you see here was taken about a month ago along with the one of the osprey flying overhead of me. I didn't take my camera with me this time since the batteries have been giving me lots of problems, but you can now walk across that land bridge and down in. I don't think a sparrow could drown in what's left. I sure hope they fix it soon, I love to go there to think and just enjoy the creation, listen to the birds and hubby was going to get a fishing license to fish, not now for sure!

Anyway, we were on the way back home and about 1/8 mile from my driveway we saw our two red tailed hawks. I say, 'our' because they were born in one of our trees and fledged and grew up right in our yard last year. They still hang around and I've seen them many times looking out my patio doors while on the laptop, terrorizing my squirrels and birds I feed everyday. They were perched up on top of a telephone pole, looking out over the field I guess for mice, rabbits, whatever they could catch. I had seen them the two days before on the same pole. Also last week when we had a break in the rain I saw one swoop down outside my window as I was taking some pictures on the shelf by the window of my new necklace. It looked to me like he was after one of hte squirrels that was frolicking around one of my dogwood trees. But he missed, sat there for a second and I raised the camera in my hand and off he went. I got a great shot of him almost horizontal to my camera, and saw him land up in a tree on the edge of our property.

Well when my husband came home Sunday, we mowed the grass, I helped a little bit to get away from the computer for awhile. I looked down into my neighbors driveway and saw one of them laying at the edge with wings out. I quickly called my husband over and that was when he told me that out on the road near where we had seen them, someone had hit one with a car! I couldn't believe it. I thought maybe this one was hit and was going to call our Hawk Sanctuary. He was in the sun and had his mouth open. But before I called I wanted to make sure he was actually hurt, so I started to walk towards him slowly, talking to him gently, and he pulled in his wings, slowly, not scared, and then flew off over the lawn, just a little bit away and landed on top of my neighbors house.

He stayed there about 5 minutes and then moved down the field a bit. It threw a bunch of birds in the evergreens into a tizzy though, and they carried on, flying in and out for quite a while, but I don't think he had any intention of going after them or their nests. I heard a very faint hawk cry. He did this on and off and yesterday too. I finally realized that he was mouring the loss of his brother or sister and it was so sad. I think why he was laid out on the driveway was because he was in shock of losing them. It is so sad, I still hear him out there and it reminds me that life is so short, I wish people could realize that. Some day it will be too late to say that nice thing to the one you always should have, or made reconciliation instead of being stuborn, or realizing your mortality and know it is but fleeting, and can be gone in an instant.

People mourning, birds mourning, life , death, sadness, happiness. Sorry for waxing so philosophical, it's been one of those days, we've been under severe TS watches most of the day and had quite a few blow through, 60 mile an hour winds and virtual hurricanes as well. But I wanted to share that I found out late yesterday that my first try at entering the monthly Challenge at ART BEAD SCENE caught the eye of the judges and they picked yours truly, as Featured Artist of the week. A honor I share with another artist since it was the last of the month before choosing a winner.
You can read about it here, needless to say I was shocked but pleasantly so, it helps to soften the sad a bit and I am thankful to those who felt my first effort worth honoring with the featured artist post. Thank you Tari.

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