Things are getting very colorful in our back yard. This morning my spouse and I spotted a brilliant red cardinal, a dazzling blue bird and two bright yellow goldfinches, and, of course, some cheery little sparrows at our bird feeders.
It didn't happen this morning, but, from time to time a falcon will fly through our yard. Needless to say the smaller birds scatter and disappear when that happens. Peregrine Falcons were brought to downtown Fort Wayne about ten years ago to help control the pigeon population and they have been very effective at that.
In reading about the falcons, I learned that they are the fastest animals on earth. They can stoop (dive to catch their prey) at up to 200 MPH. The top recorded speed 242 MPH. I think that's astonishing, but one of the things that caught my attention was the use of the word 'stoop' to mean a dive. I've heard of the word stoop used to refer to a small porch or to mean to bend over or lean down but I had never heard it used to describe a bird's dive. So now you can add a new use for an old familiar word to your vocabulary,
More info about birds (posssibly more than you ever wanted to know). Falcons are not a kind of hawk. They are a completely different bird. I checked because my very favorite bird is the hawk. If I had a totem it would be a hawk. I love to watch them fly. They will work hard, flapping their wings to get high in the air, then spread their wings and soar, letting the wind carry them along. I've always thought of that as a metaphor for my life - work hard when you need to, then soar when you can. Happily, retirement allows for a lot of soaring.
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