Discovery Channel Moment Before BIC Time

While answering e-mails before BIC time this a.m., a swift shape raced past the dining room window.

Since the back of the house faces a heavily wooded hill, it's not unusual for our backyard to attract wildlife. Foxes often bask in the sunny grass beside the fort during the spring, summer, and fall. Squirrels leap from tree to tree. Ground hogs waddle between fallen logs. Chipmunks chitter endlessly. But something about this morning's shape was different. It didn't move in the way our usual visitors do. It soared.

I pushed away from my laptop to get better look out the picture window. Didn't take me long to spy our guest.

It perched on the main crossbeam of our wooden swing set, its head swiveling like an owl's, taking in the entire yard. Our golden, Buffy, watched with me, quivering beneath my hand with the need to seek, find, retrieve.

This morning's Discovery Channel moment: a hawk with a four-foot wing span at least.

Magnificent.