To Whom It May Concern

Birds Of Prey!!!

I have always been partial to birds of prey, a great deal of admiration when I see them flying above or setting on a lonely telephone pole overlooking thier area. There is something majestic and free about them, they are basically atop thier food chain, other than man that is, but man does not eat birds of prey. Sadly enough, for a long time 'chicken hawks' (what farmers even to this day call falcons of any type) were shot on site because they would prey on chickens and other fowl that farmers would be raising.

When I was about 12 years old, my sister found a baby sparrow hawk on our driveway in the early spring, hardly any feathers, it was difficult to tell that it was a falcon of any type, except when you looked at it's eyes and beak, it had those incredible piercing eyes and the tell tale curved down pointy beak that birds of prey have. I raised the bird for the next 6 months or so in our little wooden shed beside our house, on raw hamburger. I put a small two way mirror over a hole in the wall so I could watch him/her, because if you would go inside it would sit there and just stare at you. One day though I went in and found the hawk taking a bath in it's water dish, it was so cute, but it immediately jumped up and shook the water off and took it's normal defensive pose staring at me.

After a point I realized the falcon was large enough to be on it's own and that I was going to be unable to raise him/her much further, so I opened the door one day and watched the bird fly out, and up up up. I left the door open and figured that he would come back but he never did... that surprised me. I thought about him probably every day for a couple weeks and then every time I would see a small falcon around I would wonder if it was him, for a couple years after that. I really enjoyed raising him up, I just hope he learned a way to feed himself, I couldn't simulate that at all.

We have bald eagles in Nebraska, along certain rivers, and it's an awesome site to see them flying around, they are truly a majestic bird, when you see one at rest, overlooking it's domain, without fear of anything, it's breathtaking. Other birds give me a little of that same feeling, but not on such a grand scale. I guess I could really sit and watch birds of prey for hours and hours, just going about, doing what they do to survive, there is this trance like state I go into while watching something like that, it's very hard to take myself away at that point.