Haiku Photo Opportunity Missed - No Snow

Cooper's Hawk

Up to one inch of snow was predicted for this morning - unseasonably late. The cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. are supposed to hit their peak this week - the flowering tree blossoms around our yard are further behind, but are going to be ready to pop soon. I had already been composing in my mind a photograph showing swollen peach blossom buds in our back yard - peaking through a covering of snow. If my camera was staged properly, maybe I could even include an image of a Dark-eyed Junco in a perfect shot that could be described by 5-7-5 verse - it would be perfect, seasonality included included in the photograph as well as the description - just as

Peach tree blossoms - Spring

a proper Japanese haiku master would do. But nature is unpredictable, especially here in the Mid-Atlantic Region, so the peach boughs didn't even get a dusting of snow before the storm passed by. Nature can also provide surprises, so when I looked out an upstairs window, I saw a large figure below the feeder that was out of place - a Cooper's Hawk. No small sparrows or juncos or squirrels - all had vacated the premises with this predator in their dining room.

On the peach tree bough -

instead of a dust of snow,

a Cooper's Hawk rests.

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Peterson's Chart from Life Magazine

Birds

From Life Magazine, June 2, 1947 - 15 Cents - Yearly Subscription $5.50. 

This chart [left] shows how the shape of tail, the size of body and the pattern or the wings identify large birds as they fly directly overhead.

I identified the Cooper's Hawk in our yard by using a combination of Roger Tory Peterson's Birds of Eastern and Central North America and checking on the Web photographs of the hawk with the Eastern Harrier - the dark cap on the top of the head finally settled it for me. Looking on line, I also found a

A once classified document

1947 Life Magazine article by Peterson including the identification chart shown above. The caption reminded me that I had once read that during World War II Peterson had helped develop a practical identification guide for aircraft that was based on the same principles used in field guides today to identify birds - a remarkable, but simple approach to distinguishing key characteristics of wings and fuselages. These were once classified documents that became progenitors to the contemporary A Field Guide to Airplanes of North America by M.R. Montgomery and G.L. Foster; or Jane's Aircraft Recognition Guide by Derek Wood. Avian-biological and industrial-mechanical - all handled with the same approach.

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Duke as the Old Man Tree

Trees
From In Search of Methuselah, May 11, 2010, Clark Vandergrift photo blog.
The peach trees that I espaliered a month ago are going into their fourth year (I should have begun training them one or two years ago). Bending the boughs down to tie them to the steel fence posts I drove into the ground between the trees caused major trauma to the trunks and limbs - splits through the heart wood. I figure the trees will recover and heal since the cambium tissues beneath the bark are still mostly intact. Perhaps some really neat scaring will result. These trees make ready perches for the different birds that use our feeder - both when making entrances and exits. It is unlikely that the trees in our back yard will grow to an age such as  Bristle Cone Pines, or take on the notoriety of being named for the Bible's oldest living person - Methuselah. Interestingly, a friend of ours is an actor, and when I was searching for a list of parts that he has played in movies, I came across a short video where he was the old man in the Methuselah Tree that is found in the White Mountains of eastern California. These kinds of remote places have the potential for creating all kinds of new folklore - see the example in the footnotes to the blog: Neo-Ancient Geoglyphs Come to Iowa.