Night Hawks, also known as Bull Bats in our local vernacular, showed up in the Yamsey Valley today.  They are in the night jar family. My pet name for them is, June Hawks, because they almost always return to Aspen Ridge Ranch on, or very near, June 1. They’re a bit late this year, as is everything else. It makes you realize how arbitrary our keeping of time is; be it a Gregorian calendar, Julian, Mayan, Chinese, or whatever. In the real scheme of existing the only thing that really matters is the weather and the season and how all of nature reacts and interacts with these forces of nature. No sentient beings can escape this truth, though humans, now so removed from the earth/farming/hunting/gathering, do a fair job of ignoring it.

 

Welcome home June Hawks with your wings curved tightly at the elbow, splashes of white banding your wrists, and sleek, angular bodies perfectly for juking and jiving after mosquitoes. Eat up.