I look forward to the drive, especially a 12 mile stretch, straight as an arrow, thru cultivated fields with telephone poles bordering one side. The beauty of the fields is striking with acres of color ranging from freshly disked black earth to long silver rows of plastic with varying shades of green stretching to the base of the mountains beyond.
A few weeks ago, after the pumpkin fields were harvested, one could see spots of orange from a few that had been missed. It was only hours before the ground gave way to new plantings. Every inch of soil is cultivated, even to the edge of paved roads. This area is truly ‘the land of milk and honey’, but builders are coveting and building homes as fast as they can and the agricultural lands are diminishing every day. They don’t seem to realize we are losing the Golden Eggs the earth has given us, chunk by chunk as they buy up the fields and build fashionably large multi-million dollar homes for wealthy people.
As we enter the 12 mile stretch, we eagerly anticipate the sighting of hawks which are often seen perched on the telephone poles and wires, and occasionally on the ground of a fallow field. Sometimes we only count 3 or 4, but once we counted 8. They are difficult to identify because they perch between the insulators and we drive by so fast we get only glimpses of them. No matter how we strain our eyes, details of color elude us, but the white breast patches can be seen if they are facing us as we drive past. If their backs are toward us, their stance indicates they are ready for action if food is spotted.
While searching the internet for hawk photos I came across this photo which is like the hawks we see.
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