I saw the coolest thing this evening as I was walking near the irrigation canal. A hawk was hovering well above the trees, it's body vertical, wings moving back and forth maintaining it's position. Suddenly it flipped head down and dove for the trees. Before it could complete it's dive, a swarm of small black birds flew up from their hiding place among the leaves and drove the hawk back.
Several minutes later, the hawk still hadn't given up, it just shifted position. It began soaring above its prey, light belly camouflaging it in the bright sky. The smaller birds in the trees quited down, began flitting from the trees to the ground hunting and bringing back their prey to the hungry chicks in the nests they had just been so ferociously protecting. The hawk dropped from its glide in the sky, straight for the unprotected baby birds. Or so it thought. Just as it reached the highest branches the air around it turned black. The hawk shrieked and retreated into higher air.
It circled a few more times before it flew away in search of easier prey. I'd like to think that most of us are like those tiny black birds. Certainly they overrode their own sense of survival in order to protect the defenseless. Can we?
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