Monsoon in Raptorville with owl and hawks

When it's monsoon season in raptorville, and the temperature is below 100, I go for an evening walk. First, a visit with the young great horned owl who watched my every move

 .

until potential dinner flew close by and turned the owl's head

As the sky began to darken, nighthawks flew above me, in numbers I've never seen before, all heading in the same direction, like the bats that fly out from under the bridge each night. There were bats flying also, but they fluttered like errant bits of confetti.

A Cooper's hawk arrived. I focused on it, but from behind me I heard a man's voice calling in a loud whisper, "Miss, oh, Miss, look here." He was pointing to a second hawk in a different tree. 

He introduced me to his dog, Gracie, her back end wagging while her front end was poised to escape. The man directed me not to make eye contact with her if I wanted her to approach me. "She's my rescue. I don't know what happened to her before I got her, but it wasn't good."

I was hoping to see Coyote, as I often do 

Coyote drawing Beth Surdut www.bethsurdut.com

but instead, I hooked up with  Maxfield Parrish, who'd come to  paint the sky.

 I walked home, watching the rain walk over the mountains.

Paying Attention: Fierce beauty

photo: Beth Surdut 2018

I'd been looking down for snakes as I walked in the desert heat,

 but when when I came round the bend, 

I immediately sensed I was being watched.

The Cooper's hawk was wary,

 in the way that predators are,

 but we both knew who had the right of  way.

photo: Beth Surdut 2018

I continued on, the lizards and bunnies all skittering and hopping away from me,

thinking they were running for their lives

even though they were taking the path to death.

I never shrug and burp up the pablum of "circle of life'

or "nature red in tooth and claw."

Instead, I hope that prey animals die immediately, 

not suffering, 

not wounded, 

not slowly suffocating,

not festering.

If death can be good, then may each precious little life die a good death.

Ways to go wild in the desert

"I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw." (Hamlet).

 Crepuscular creature that I am, I often walk the desert starting at dusk and into the night. Last night, responding to the monsoons, lovely poisonous white datura bloomed amidst yellow brittlebush covering much of the paths to and from the labyrinth. 

Three Cooper's hawks flew close above me at the dimming of the day. later, a fourth hawk landed in a tree and watched me photograph the flowers.

On my way home, I was thinking, "If I were a snake, I'd like to be in this undergrowth..." and then just as I reached a clearing, I almost stepped on this king snake.