T minus 18 days.      Running day.  Hallelujah.

Decided it was time to test my fin.  Up with the birds.  Literally.  I was up with the screeching baby hawk.  We have a screeching baby hawk.  Hawks hate me.   I don't really know why they hate me I just know that they do hate me.  Yes, I have had multiple encounters with hawks.  Close encounters.  Of the terrible kind.  

It was a dark and stormy night.  Ok, no it wasn't. It was a regular old night and I was driving home from work.  On the inside lane of a four lane busy thoroughfare.  Through a busy town.   At rush hour.  I am driving along minding my own business, belting out "Landslide" in my best Stevie Nicks impersonation,  happily heading home when  BAM!  I am struck on the passenger side window by a heavy, dark, flapping object.  With eyes.  A hawk has fallen from the sky,  by-passed all other vehicles and decided to go all kamikaze on my car.

That hawk has been reincarnated.  It's mission in this life and apparently in it's afterlife is perpetually to haunt me.  He is now a screeching baby hawk.  In my yard.  Outside my window.   Let's talk about baby hawks.  The Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) is a powerful and magnificent hunter.  But they aren't born that way.  They learn their skills from their parents.  Baby hawks rely on their mother to provide food for them until it is time for them to fend for themselves.  They screech and mommy brings them food.  They screech some more, and mommy brings them more.  And so it goes.  Baby hawk grows and eventually mother says it's time for baby hawk to go out and get his own food.  But baby hawk wants mommy to keep bringing him food.  It's a lot easier that way. Baby hawk lets mommy (and every other living creature within a five mile radius) know this  by emitting a high pitched, ear-splitting screech.  A constant, high pitched ear splitting screech.  Mommy flies off early in the morning.  Baby hawk wakes.  Where's mommy?  Where's my food?   Screech.  Mommy flies overhead but doesn't bring food.  Screech, screech. Mommy lands on a nearby tree.  "Come, be powerful and magnificent with me" she calls to him.   Screech.  Mommy flies off again.  Screech.   SCREECH.   All day long.  For days and days.  And days. Right outside my window. 

Up for an early run.  With the birds.