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Guest column

Hawk's awareness soars above ours

By JAMES PETTICAN
Published June 19, 2005

The stately hawk perched above our heads was ignoring us even though with a high jump, we might have touched him. He had more important things to do than acknowledge our presence. We chatted in low tones, observing now and then that his indifference had almost a royal hauteur about it. Indeed, he is among the kings of the feathered kingdom.

My family and I were enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon visiting two other close relatives who were spending a week deep in the Ocala National Forest in North Florida. It was the most isolated spot I have encountered for a long time. The little cabin is at the end of its own unpaved dirt lane, with no sign of other human life or habitation to be seen or heard. It is perched on a rise above a steadily flowing spring with crystal clear water pouring from its spring head, which has fish swarming all around it. Although the cabin has been modernized, there is no TV and cell phones can find no tower to reach out to.

The forest is not a quiet place, however, as bird cries echo constantly and the dry leaves rustle from time to time with creatures heard but not seen. Later, our relatives displayed a week's worth of photos featuring sizable gators, both by daylight and night; a raccoon or two, and a bright red cardinal that perched on the dock of the spring for a few seconds. Bear sightings are possible, of course, but none happened that week.

Wading, swimming and canoeing in the clear water were experiences to be savored. You can wind through various narrow waterways by canoe and hope that you can find your way back to where you started. While we were there, two canoeing teens, who had missed a turn, wandered into our area and promptly apologized for their confusion. It was understandable. They must have missed their mark by some distance, however, as no other cabins or cottages are in the vicinity of the spring.

After about 30 minutes on his perch above us, the hawk flew away and landed in a distant tree, closer, apparently, to prey he had detected from his first perch.

All too soon, shadows were lengthening and it was time for us to return to the world of traffic noise and instant communication. Our relatives recounted later that the forest night is even noisier than the forest by day.

As we bumped along the dirt lane toward the nearest pavement that led back to our human version of the world, I thought about the hawk and how he would not miss us at all if we never came back to his world.

When I was young, a favorite theme of science fiction writers was to have all humankind disappear from the planet with the exception of a few survivors, some of whom always possessed female allure to rival the current Hollywood starlets. Against great odds, these survivors would eventually find their way back to a new era when Earth would be repopulated and all past mistakes corrected. No wonder it was science fiction.

Our sylvan Sunday, however, convinced me once again that if all humans were suddenly gone, the world we had just visited would go on with natural processes taking care of the planet until the sun runs out of fuel and everything turns to ice and frozen sediment.

Maybe the hawks already realize that.

Retired journalist James Pettican lives in Palm Harbor.

[Last modified June 19, 2005, 00:38:17]