Dining at the hawk buffet

For the past two days I've been burning the huge brush piles created by our tree clearing project. The piles have been burning for 48 hours with the brush about 75 percent consumed.

When I started the fires I noticed field mice scampering for safety. Then the hawks started circling and watching the rodent frenzy from nearby tree tops. I never saw a hawk swoop in for a kill, but this afternoon while pulling off my boots on the back porch I heard at least three different hawks giving their victory cries. It's one of the most distinctive bird sounds you'll ever hear.

Fewer mice means fewer snakes. It's a win-win for me and the hawks, not so good for the mice. Such is the natural order.

Correction and direction

The sharp-eyed Sam Venable informed me I had misidentified the hawk in my Feb. 27 post. What I purported to be a red-tailed hawk was actually a red-shouldered hawk. I checked a secondary bird book and Sam was spot on. The red-shouldered hawk is a mite smaller than the red-tailed and has a rust-colored breast instead of the red-tail's light-colored breast.

I was explaining my faux pas to a neighbor when he asked a tough question: Why do you write Deerfield Diary? A good question without a ready answer.

Ernest Hemingway said that you can only know something if you write it or paint it. Since I don't paint, writing is my outlet. I believe I was placed here on this scraggly but very-alive 10 acres in East Tennessee for a reason. It seems only fitting that I should pay close attention to what is likely to be the last chapter of my life.

When I swing a leg over the steering wheel of my tractor, I'm taken back to summers on my grandfather's farm in West Tennessee. When I plant something, I think about the miraculous cycles of life. I walk the woods in wonderment, mulling over how much I have to learn about the ground under my feet. I grow younger as I age.

This piece of earth teaches me. Where else would I have learned the difference between a red-tailed and a red-shouldered hawk and that the wood from the lowly locust tree is the prime wood in the manufacturing of xylophone keys?

The cry of the hawk is a lovely sound

Of all the different types of wildlife inhabiting Deerfield, my favorite is the red-tailed hawk. I shot this photo yesterday around noon from our front porch.

Most of the time when I bush-hog, I see the hawks circling in the sky keeping an eye on a fresh snack that may scurry away from the tractor. I like to hear a hawk cry after it has made a kill. The cry sounds both gleeful and mournful at the same time, just like the tune "Ashokan Farewell."

A red-tail hawk weighs around three pounds. Hawks mate for life with both sexes incubating the eggs and feeding their young.

Our family often made a game of seeing who could count the most hawks sitting on trees or wires along the interstate. Many a time I have stopped the car to try to take a photo of a hawk, but as soon as the car door opens the hawk takes off.

Deerfield hawks seem a little more congenial, almost like they don't mind me living on the land they oversee.

WEATHER UPDATE: For once, I'm in sync with the weather prognosticators. A gentle rain started about 5 a.m. today, starting the process of germinating the grass seed I planted on Wednesday and Thursday. Two more days of steady rain and we are off and running.