Hunting Harrier

It was one of those days in the Northwest:  curtains of fine rain made a foggy shroud right down to the ground.  Gusting wind carried waves of fine rain in every direction.  I had been out at Fort Stevens State Park, checking out Parking Lot C for birds that might have been blown in by the recent series of storms.  It was so windy and wet that even the hardiest of birds had taken cover.  The sturdy wood viewing platform shuddered in the wind gusts and the jetty and sand below trembled with the force of the incoming waves.  I couldn't even scare up a sparrow in the field adjacent to the dike.

As I made the long, straight drive back to the main park I began to pass by Trestle Bay.  There is a beautiful, open grassy field that becomes a marsh,  and in the bay an old wooden trestle that's often good for seeing hunting peregrines.  Not today, though.  I decided it would be more productive to look for birds in the protected, treed portion of the park.

Then, as if out of nowhere, a northern harrier was keeping pace with my car in the grassy field next to Trestle Bay.  It was a female, warm brown feathering with the characteristic wide, white band just where the tail begins.  She was focused on the ground a few feet below her,  head turned down, eyes and ears completely tuned to any mouse activity in the tall, wet grasses.  Her wings tilted and adjusted to the wind, giving her the characteristic  butterfly flight.  Tail fanned and tipped, making aerodynamic adjustments to her chosen path.  A flick of tail and wing could change her course in an instant if a mouse was spotted below.

Harriers have owl-like faces with feathers that form a pattern that carries sound to their ears.  The males are a lovely gray and females  are brown.  Since they must protect the nest, brown feathering, as with many female birds, is necessary.

They're also known as marsh hawks, as this was their name until the American Ornithological Union made the decision to rename them.   If you watch a northern harrier as she very thoroughly and patiently  combs a field, tilting and turning only a few feet above the ground, fierce face always turned down to see and hear,  the name fits.

I used to see  a lot more harriers on the Peninsula.  The grassy dunes are perfect for hunting the voles and mice they need to survive.  As houses have pushed out to and beyond the primary dune, harriers, along with other bird life, have diminished.  They require these open fields to do their work and bring home the food. 

But on this windy, wet day, this bird was at work by the Bay.  For wild things, bad weather is just a factor to work with.  Food must still be found.  As she worked the field, still patiently and thoroughly hunting the soggy tussocks, I wished her well from my dry, warm shelter in the car.  And a small part of me, maybe a tiny, ancient remnant of an older life, wished for myself her keenness  and wild beauty.