Thanks to Rodney Small for bringing our attention to this one!
We know that birds often act as messengers and have done a number of posts on various kinds of birds that performed that service. Now here’s an odd one. A hawk – believed to be a Cooper’s Hawk – has taken refuge in the main reading room at the Library of Congress. It was first noticed on Wednesday, January 19, and is believed to have flown in through a broken window at the top of the 160-foot high dome and hasn’t found its way out. The article and the actual photo of the hawk.
So what can this hawk’s characteristics tell us about its message?
Well, they’re predators, skillful flyers, and can often be seen around backyard feeders, looking for an easy meal. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, they catch their prey with their feet and squeeze it to death. They hold their prey away from their bodies until it’s dead. They’ve also been known to hold their prey underwater until they die. These hawks are now seen in urban and suburban areas; some studies indicate they are more common in these areas than in their natural habitats of forests.
Life is difficult for the male hawks. They tend to be smaller physically than the females and are also somewhat submissive to them (well, maybe the size difference has something to do with that!), The male hawks build the nests and provide all the food for the female and young for 90 days, until the young can survive on their own.
Hawk, of course, is a term used for people who are pro-war. But since this hawk is in the library of congress, the place where all books published in the U.S. are housed, then perhaps its message suggests that we should look to the history books when making decisions about war. It also might address the predatory nature of politics – both domestic and international – and the divisiveness generally in congress. The fact that the hawk hasn’t found a way out of the library, that you’ve got librarians with binoculars watching it, trying to identify definitively what sort of hawk it is, is also intriguing. Might it suggest that if you ignore history, you’re doomed to repeat it?
Perhaps the hawk is telling us that the old paradigm – the U.S. as the world’s cop, corporate takeover of democracy, hidden and predatory agendas – is trapped within itself, caught in a loop of its own making. Honestly, if you look at someone like Michelle Bachman, who is positioning herself as a supposedly viable presidential candidate in 2012, then we may be on an irreversible course toward the sort of destruction 2012 doomsayers have been talking about. Bachman is worse than Palin. She isn’t just a balloon head, as one commentator remarked this evening, she’s the kind of person who would promote laws based on her revisionist history. Just this week she said the founding fathers abolished slavery. Wrong. They were slave owners.
As for Obama’s state of the union speech tonight, Iraq and Afghanistan merited a sentence or so each. No talk about how these two wars are sucking our economy dry.
But hey, maybe it’s also true that I’m making too big a deal out of this. Maybe the hawk just took a wrong turn.
i totally agree, shadow!
a hawk is too powerful and majestic to be ignored. for whatever reason he may be there…
oh, how could i have forgotten "eagle eye" – a term that i heard all my life growing up –
here's to our little cooper hawk flying high and flying well!!!
lauren, i know what you mean – during the years i was protesting in dc many moons ago [70s-80s] every weekend the white house and elipse/mall areas were packed – packed – with people demonstrating – all ages all ethnic groups all backgrounds – diversity at its best – there was such an air of hope and of feeling as if being there would make a difference – if we just stood up to TPTB and let our voices be heard and our presence seen – but it is a different story today it seems – sadly so –
The eagle's eye: big sweep. Yes.
I'm with Lauren, I see them as big picture as well.
I've always felt that hawks were worth taking messages from……..to me, they represent "far seeing", the "big picture". They have enormous powers of sight, way beyond our own abilities; so when they hunt, they see a great deal.
When I protested in front of the white house against the war in Afghanistan in 2009, we were only about 300 people, and we were treated mostly like a bunch of kooks, as if protesting the war was something naive or rediculous. I remember feeling most saddened by that, that our world had become one where people no longer questioned authority, or for that matter, the morality of the millions of lives impacted by this. We've become a nation that does not question – sadly, all the more primed for right wing politics that border on fascism.
Let us hope the Hawk flies for an educated look at the "big picture".
T & R, I know exactly what you mean about looking at W. His mother Barbara had and still has the very same affect on me. It's different with the current CIC. I can't quite put my finger (or psyche) on it. There seems to be a gradual metamorphosis taking place, almost as if he is undergoing some type of slow reconstructive surgery on his features, and it isn't pleasant at all for me to look at him. When I gaze at a current photo of him, his face slowly changes into something that is not his normal appearance. It becomes something else, and it is disturbing. I know how utterly absurd this sounds, but it is what it is. I haven't yet read the speech. Plan to do that tonight.
Soapfan: you're right, we should've mentioned it in terms of native American totems. Your 2 experiences are powerful!
Thanks for dropping by!
Hi!
I'm new to your blog from a link at the Sync List and I like your blog very much!
I am surprised, though, that your post did not mention the Native American animal totem meaning of the hawk.
This month I have had two early morning sightings of the black/white tailed hawk in your photo as well as its more common relative, the red-tailed hawk.
Both times the two unusually "voluptuous" (well-fed) birds were perched on the fence behind our home. My first thought was its totem meaning. I read that Native Americans believe the hawk to be one of the most powerful totems and encourages strength. I personally had a few situations within the time period of seeing the birds in which I did focus on the strength and power that the hawk totem symbolizes.
This wasn't my first encounter with hawks. As a teen, a Cooper's hawk, chasing a small bird, collided with our glass patio door. I went out to see it and its neck was broken. I took it to our community vet and found that it was protected here in North Carolina. The vet donated the bird to the University of NC and it was placed on display there.
Thank you for a great blog!
Cj – I could never watch W without feeling like I was going to gag.
Thanks for the update, Gypsy! Will check out the link.
update – just read that mister hawk was captured this morning and is now in a rehab conservatory before being released –
https://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/26/133247305/hawk-caught-removed-from-library-of-congress
by the way, there are some neat photos on the net of mister hawk soaring around with the dome's cherubs –
Djan – I didn't see that part of your comment!
Has anyone ever seen this kind of hawk? I don't think I have. We have hawks around here, but not this type.
You may be right – we are on a path that we cannot turn at this point – history will repeat and repeat until it is no longer able to do that. Only then will the pendulum swing the other way.
We lived in Minnesota when Bachman won her first seat. She was an idiot then, but has now morphed into a total "balloon head." Another one that is totally ignorant of basic facts – such as how slaves were freed. Did she not know about the Civil War??
i'd say, all in all, that the hawk has taken a right turn, so to speak –
great take on the hawk, macgregors!
'Maybe the hawk just took a wrong turn' – that made me smile after such an interesting explanation. Who's to say? I'll leave US politics to you though – the UK upsets my equilibrium sufficiently without adding to it. But, of course, we can't really ignore what is happening the world over.
You may have hit the nail directly on the head when you used the phrase 'wrong turn' in the post. Did you ever see the horror movie WRONG TURN? Our son loaned it to us to view and it was the scariest movie I;ve ever seen, bar none. Perhaps the hawk in the library, like our right whale this week, indeed took a 'wrong turn' to demonstrate what is hapening in the United States of America. I was a bad citizen last night. I refused to watch the president speak, because recently it has become impossible for me to look at his face. When I watch him speak, it's as though he morphs into something else, and this has only begun to happen in recent days. It didn't occur during his campaign or early in the presidency. Now his face morphs into something I can't look at without feeling chills and dread. Sorry if this offends his supporters. I cannot help my psychic impressions, and if they disturb me, I try to avoid them. These disturb me, therefore I don't look at him. I'll read a full copy of his dialogue, though.
I hope TPTB leave the hawk alone. It knows how to get out of the library and will do so at its own discretion! HHhhmmmmm. WV:
"tedism" Teddy Roosevelt??
I have a juvenile Cooper's Hawk that hangs out in a nearby tree, looking for some fast food at my feeders. I figure he can have all the sparrows he wants but should leave my cute chickadees alone. 🙂
I watched the speech and wondered about his direction, ever more right leaning, business friendly, fluffy talk. I guess that's politics these days.