Oh my goshawk goodness!! Look who came to visit the mice in my compost this morning! Its a white goshawk! I must stop with the exclamation marks! Can't!
OK I have a confession to make. The first photo isnt mine. But mine just aint worth of a thumbnail enticement. My photo is really lame and fuzzy. Imagine me leaping out of bed naked, rushing for the SLR and tripping over Jim's boots, finding that SOMEONE had neglected to put it on charge and I had to use my phone, and sooo slowly opening the back sliding door so I could zoom in on this beautiful bird. So the close up is a picture from Parks Tasmania so you get the real deal.
It is actually a Grey Goshawk, and the white is a morph. I have such a penchant for morphs and rareties. It is a threatened species, so it's an extra thrill to see one. They are the only all white bird of prey in the world.
We get many birds of prey circling over the back paddocks, particularly the wedgetailed eagles that so elegantly chase off cockatoos and magpies. We can HEAR their presence before they are seen as the other birds start screeching and squawking like mad. I am sure the wedgetails do it for fun.
Around here it's farmland and people have stock to keep the grasses down in case of fire. We have been here 9 years now and we have never slashed the back two acres. We call it the grass farm. It is beautiful in it's own right. There is such seasonal beauty in it - the golden bleached blond of summer, deeper reds of mars grass (we don't know it's ACTUAL name but it turns the whole vista red, so seems appropriate) and the winds rippling across it like the nature gods had shook a sheet of the earth to lay flat on the fields. In the early evening the slung low sun slides its yellow fingers across the grass in blessings. The field is alive with a mousey rustling, and the birds of prey come slicing and sleuthing, hovercopters scoping for rodents that scatter and dissipate in the blades.
Once, we had a complaint from a concerned passer by who felt it was a fire hazard. We had done the right thing and mowed the regulated gap between fenceline and grass. We felt that it had protected the dry earth from the hot sun and all the years of rot and growth were giving back to the earth that had had cows and horses on it for years. We had mowed a path through the guts of it that was visible on Google maps and had joked we could carve out a greeting there for friends in England to see. The council guy came to see and we walked him through and enthused about the wild things and the dirt beneath. He gazed skyward with us as a kestrel spun and wove the tapestry of the invisible air to use it to spin down and take a mouse. Good timing, oh pretty bird of prey. He left with kind words, as bureaucrats too can feel for wild spaces. You're right, mate, he said, pumping our hands genially. You guys are doing good things and I can't fault it. It's just different for folks around here, he says. And we have never heard from them since.
The reward for not cutting grass, therefore, is to have phantom goshawks visit your mornings.
