Meredith the Hawk-Rescuer

When Meredith and I sat next together in 8th grade Math, not knowing one another at all, but bonding through our constant clowning of what we considered to be our extremely ridiculous teacher, I had no idea we would become lifelong friends – we were 13, what did we know (although we knew a friend when we saw one! We were Phys. Wrecks together: my proudest high school moment) – and also I had no idea that one day she would be such a badass she could help an osprey out of its accidental containment in her chicken coop. I watched in amazement as she approached the freaked-out predator and gently – but firmly – dealt with the situation, even holding him as he was upside down in order to guide him upwards towards the small hole in the netting, which she cut in order to aid his escape.

We were hanging out inside and I glanced out at the chicken area (I get my eggs from Meredith, just so you know), and saw a movement that seemed extremely un-chicken-like. There was something in there that was leaping up – up – up – and then coming back down. “There’s something out there,” I said. So we walked across the yard to investigate. We saw him. (Her?) There is a net placed over the chicken yard, in order to keep out the hawks, but there clearly was some kind of rip in the net, which this hungry predator found. But now he couldn’t get out. He kept shooting himself up into the air, knocking against the net and falling back down. The chickens were huddled over in their structure, showing unusual intelligence for such (semi-dumb) birds, but at one point, when Mere had the hawk cornered they all came wobbling out, one by one, to see what was going on. You could almost hear them saying to each other, “Hey, let’s go check it out!” “Yeah, something’s going on over there!” We shooed them back into the coop, hoping to avoid a bloodbath. (Unfortunately, just a week later something – some carnivore – got into the coop and went on a murder spree. RIP chickens.)

We saw the freaked-out bird huddled against the fence. Meredith went back to the house to get her gardening gloves and shears. She attempted to move the hawk out of its corner. I made eye contact with him at one point. His eyeballs were WILD. Literally. We couldn’t get him out of there, and Meredith backed off, to avoid the bird flying up into her face. Then we watched for a while, as he stood there, cock of the walk, in the cleared-out yard, considering his options. I loved his furry pants. He flew up, and then, catastrophically, got tangled up in the net, and found himself hanging upside down against the fence.

Meredith got to work. She went over to him, and clipped open the net above, clearing it away. She then started untangling the poor bird. He was totally helpless, his ferocious talons clinging to one of the wooden beams of the fence.

It was amazing to watch how he went totally still as she worked to get him loose. It was like he knew. It was like he felt that this human creature was helping him, not out to harm him. He cooperated with her by freezing and even allowing her to touch him. She got him free but then she had to show him the escape route, that he was free to go should he so choose. She had to push him by the back in to an upright position and basically guide him to the hole above.

He flapped his impressive wings and then … miraculous … stood on the top of the fence, totally free, and turned to look at us. He didn’t just fly away. He stood there. He looked at me. He looked at her. It was a good 10-15 seconds of inter-species contact. Did he want to take a look at the one who freed him? Just to make sure? It was incredible. Then he twisted around his powerful body, launched himself into the air, and flapped away into the forest.