警察的车趴在前门口有一阵子不见开走，想起她的围巾口罩，想起家中口罩有多，就拿了一盒口罩出去，走到车窗外，车窗关着，她坐在车座上一边在做笔录，一边在讲电话。我等了好几分钟，等她最后揺下车窗，隔着距离告诉她我有spare face masks, 她只说一句，她prefer自己的mask。 我礼貌地再次谢了谢她的到来，谢谢她help save the baby hawk，转身离去。
It was 7ish pm when I opened the door to the backyard. Just as I was about to step out, something came to my sight. In the middle of the small backyard, on a rusty iron décor stood a bird, its feathers disheveled as if being drenched in the water. It saw me but did not budge. “Wait, it was a hawk”, I told myself. Holding my breath and backing off, in a suppressed voice, I called out my husband to hurry down. He snatched the camera from the table, squatted down at the doorstep, and zoomed in. I stood behind him, watching it with the fear that it might fly away any time. But it did not. It stood motionless, with little reactions. At first we both thought that the bird might come for water and accidentally drenched itself in the tank. But the water surface looked peaceful without any ripple or feather. Then we realized that it was a baby hawk which is unable to fly yet. It could only move uneasily to the next object when we raised our bodies, feeling threatened. Our presence may pose a danger. So we retreated and closed the door, leaving it alone and not to be disturbed.
By the time we finished dinner, it was 7:30 pm. Craning my neck and looking around two windows, I found the baby hawk still there, changed its place, its claw now clinging to a log right next to a small window. Peering through the window blinds, I scrutinized it carefully. Baby it may look, it has every feature of a hawk, its feather grizzled, its eyes, deeply set, are predominately round and fierce, and its beaks hooked downward.
It’s getting dark, and there was no sight of a mother hawk hovering over or around. “How is it going to spend the night when the temperature could drop low?” After some online searches, we started to herd it to the garage, put to a box filled with some warm cloth, fed a few sliced meat to it, and then called the local rehabilitation center. Phone calls were later made between police and the animal dispatcher. The opinions given were controversial. We decided to leave it in the box for the night and release it early next morning.
When the dawn came, I awoke to the twilight, remembering the baby hawk in the garage. Opening the box in the backyard, I saw a pair of terrified eyes, its claws struggling to stand in vain. Seized with a pang of pitifulness, I slowly turned the side of the box to ground to let it out. My attempt to feed it with a sliced beef only scared it to the bush nearby. I dropped some meat to the area, in the hope that it could pick it up itself. Ten minutes passed, nothing happened. Tiptoeing to the other side of the bush, through a narrow tiny opening, I saw a petrified body, eyes looking darkly at me in a distance. I bent down myself almost to the ground, stretching the long chopsticks with meat dangling as close to its beaks as my arms could extend. Timidly it snapped the meat from the chopsticks, gulfing it down one after another.
The baby hawk was finally in the possession of a police, who believed the stray baby hawk was suffering from famine for days. We were both relieved at placing it in a better hand.
回复 '7grizzly' 的评论 : Hey, my friend, you said exactly what he said later looking at the pictures. It is possible that even though the baby hawk is too young to eat by itself, the gene is carried on in the blood. He said it is a hawk, and when I googled it, the pictures online look similar, and the police did not correct us. So we could be right then. But it could also be called merlin, as I just checked my blog in March 2016, in which there was a picture of a merlin grabbing a rabbit on a tree. Thanks my friend for the revisit.
7grizzly 发表评论于
回复 '暖冬cool夏' 的评论 : Looking at the pictures, I noticed the hawk (You must have done some research. I wouldn't know it was a hawk) landed on top of a bird-shaped figure. I was thinking the predator might be mistaking it for a meal.
暖冬cool夏 发表评论于
回复 '7grizzly' 的评论 : Haha, my friend, Thanks for remembering the snake:)) though we don't have it around, otherwise I would have sold the house:)) Hopefully the baby hawk can visit us once it returns. I bet it will be more interested in the rabbits on the ground:) Thank you for your reading and comment!
7grizzly 发表评论于
That was a great experience and you shared it with details and accuracy. The deed was well done.
Someday, it might visit you guys, remembering the two meals and one night's board from a kind couple who helped to save its life. Or it'll save you from a snake... The possibilities are endless and good for a fiction. :-)
