Just this Sunday morning as I was coming home from fishi.. I mean CHURCH (yeah, that's the ticket) I had another close encounter.
So, there I was minding my own business having just pulled off of the road and into the driveway when I saw a chipper frantically scrambling full speed across the asphalt.
He was heading for the skimpy leafless bushes on the side of the garage. Now I finally get where the phrase "high-tailing it" came from, as his was STRAIGHT UP, totally banzai.
Six feet behind and in FULL POWER pursuit was ol' Baron Von Chippershredder.
The Baron was inches off the deck with both arresting hooks fully deployed but I could see that he was coming in WAY too hot.
Hawk meets chipper about a foot and a half from the wall and BAMM-O, right into the aluminum siding.
In that instant I figured he'd broke his neck or at least a wing but NO.
They both had done a complete 180, just like two Super-balls bouncing off a concrete sidewalk.
The chipper headed up and across two of the concrete steps to the house and ran UNDER the lower strut of the iron guard railing and leaped onto the top of one of those poof-ball evergreen bushes.
The hawk was keeping up and doing this running-jump-flap thing mere INCHES behind and when HE got to the rail he did a flap, leap, wing-tuck thing and went right BETWEEN the rail's uprights (a 4 INCH SPACE) and landed with his talons right on top of the rodent.
He had to spread his wings and use them like outriggers as the bush couldn't support his weight.
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So far, since the beginning of this read please realize that ONLY ABOUT TWO SECONDS HAVE ELAPSED.
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There I sat, one foot mashing the brake as the other pinned the clutch pedal to the floor while I maintained a double white-knuckle grip on the wheel.
The hawk swiveled his head in my direction and then matter-of-factly took off out over the fields. I was kind of surprised that he didn't give me the squirting salute as he left.
Score: Paul - 3, Hawk - 2
As an aside, it just dawned on me that if I've SEEN this twice in less than two weeks, this hawk must really be cutting into my target supply.
Or maybe there is an unusually large supply of chippers. Either way, he must be getting SCORES of vermin in this zone, or he'd move on.
Episode 2: The mason's line represents the actual track of the event starting from the right and ending on the bush.
Upon closer inspection, they actually put a dent into the siding.
