March 25 – “Grackled …”

I had quite the harrowing experience on my walk yesterday.  Well, the harrowing was not so much for me.  More startling for me.  Harrowing for at least one of the participants of what I witnessed.  Got your attention yet?  Here goes. 

 

As I walked along the very middle of the street (because it is flatter there rather than on the sides that slope for drainage, but that’s an issue for brighter architectural brains than mine), I took in the cool morning air and the chirping and jabbering of the local birds.  Those pleasant morning sounds were mixed in, of course with the occasional harsh racket of the seagulls fighting over scraps of bread they find in the street.  All in all, it was a pretty perfect tropical island paradise Spring morning.  Until …

 

Until I noticed a particularly frantic chittering from down the street a ways in front of me.  I was pretty sure it was the unmistakable squawk of a grackle complaining about something.  It’s what they do.  Sure enough, as I got closer the sound got louder.  Suddenly the noisemaker swooped from the treetops and headed off about four and a half feet off the ground … right toward me. The grackle was flying as fast as I have ever seen one move.  Why?  Because right on its tail (literally) was none other than a beautiful hawk.  I have seen a hawk nail a pigeon before, but I’ve never seen one chase down a grackle.  That in itself was enough to capture my attention.  But the identity of the combatants was not the primary concern at the time.

 

As you might recall, the grackle had filed a flight plan approximately four and a half feet off the ground.  The grackle settled into place right behind.  And that height put them on a collision course for … my neck.  That grackle was going to bore an escape niche right through me.  I came to a complete stop, stunned at the developments around me.  Run?  Duck?  Fight?  I had but seconds to contemplate my options.  Instead I simply stared in petrified silence as they sped closer and closer.  Until … at about four feet from me … the grackle veered suddenly to my right.  Not to be fooled, the hawk made just an abrupt a change to my left.  I felt like I had just set a pick and roll screen for the fastest point guard in the history of basketball.  I whipped my body around to follow the action.  The grackle grackled his way into the sky and beyond over the houses to one side of the street.  The hawk gave up his pursuit and soared in the other direction.  I’m a little rusty at translation, but I’m pretty sure I heard a faint cry in hawk-ese, “Curses, foiled again.”

 

Psalms 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

 

Father, your creatures never cease to amaze me.  Keep ‘em coming.  Amen.