Walking up the steep, narrow lane, I stop. Twenty yards ahead a hawk on the road, and amazingly, a magpie darting in from the verge, making quick, rough pecks at the raptor, then flashing back out of harm's way. Again the magpie attacks the more powerful bird, eliciting a response timid beyond expectation, a quick sidewise movement of the head which sends the magpie backpedaling frantically to the safety of two feet away. The hawk takes flight, rising only a few inches from the ground, flying up the lane. I see then why it's been so lackluster, that it's burdened with a kill. It's what the magpie wants, what has emboldened it to this harrying.

The hawk lands almost immediately, only a few more yards away, and again the magpie moves in, pecking and flapping its wings. Turning to face the scavenger, the hawk loses hold of the kill. Not dead, a dove, freed from the talons, bursts away from the melee, flying right at me. I feel the wind from its wings as it sheers over and away.

The game's over, the dove the winner. The magpie and the hawk disappear in different directions.

I continue up the shaded, windless, solitary lane. Everything calmly quiet, as though nothing of any consequence had ever happened here; the contest a shadow traced in air, desperate wingbeats having left not a trace.

The tiniest, single downy feather wafts weightlessly past my head.

4/22/2022