Go Retire Psychiatrist

We had a short rain yesterday morning and the Red-tail hawks didn’t like it a bit. Sena’s has been saying there are three hawks out there—and that turns out to be true! Maybe they’re all nest mates.

They were flapping around trying to dodge the rain drops. After the rain stopped is when the entertainment started.

There’s this controversial term for the pose hawks and vultures take when they’re drying out their feathers. They hold them out and the term for that is a matter for discussion in some circles. I’d never seen this before. There’s another term, “mantling” which is roughly the same sort of pose, but serves to cover up their food when they’re on the ground.

So, which is it for drying out? Is horaltic or heraldic? My spell checker doesn’t recognize the former and one blogger makes a case for claiming that people say “horaltic” because they don’t know the word “heraldic.

Funny, nobody ever mentions the headless hawk. Wouldn’t you know, there’s a story by Truman Capote with the title “The Headless Hawk.” I’ve never read it and the only reason I know about it is because I googled the term “the headless hawk.”