And so today’s lesson on The Odyssey flew, literally, out the window.
Andrew walked over to the glass immediately after my teaching partner, Jill, said, “No one stand up.”
Our colleagues Jeff, Rob, and Joann appeared at the door. “Is the owl still there?”
By now several students were at the window, and Jill was looking out as well. I took a quick look and said, “It’s a red-tailed hawk.”
“How do you know that?” Jill asked.
“Everyone knows that.”
Jill succumbed to the power of the owl-hawk sitting quietly in the falling snow, and suggested I go down to the science classrooms and see if anyone had a pair of binoculars.
Five minutes later, Tom and I were outside in the cold, squinting up into the trees as snowflakes melted in our hair. Tom was shooting with a nice Canon, while I was peering through the binoculars he had pulled out of a leather case that looked like it’d been at our school all forty years of Tom’s career.
Tom and I stood there looking at the bird, exhibiting the mix of awe and expertise men convey when talking about, well, anything amazing about which they actually have very little knowledge. Neither of us are bird experts, but we each agreed it was a red-tail (the burnt umber tail feathers made that one easy). I’m pretty sure at one point I actually used the word “plumage.” The bird, which had been facing the building, its white chest blurry in the snow, had now turned its back on the two land-dwellers mumbling twenty feet from its tree.
Tom and I walked around to the other side of the tree to get a better look. The bird appeared to have its shoulders scrunched up, like it was trying to shield its neck from the cold. It looked all puffed out, again, probably as a response to the weather. After having sat still for quite a while, the hawk slowly spread its wings. I gasped, expecting it to take flight, which, to me, is the best part of birdwatching. But no, it just hopped around between a few branches, and settled back in.
“I think it’s hurt,” Tom said. “See how this wing looks like it’s missing a piece compared to the other one?” he asked as he showed me some of his photos. It was getting cold, and I had to get back to class, so I thanked him for the binoculars and we went in, agreeing he would give the local nature center a call.
Jill had managed to corral the students for a light discussion of the invocation to the Muse, but the bulk of the class was given over to birdwatching. “I have two owls in my backyard,” said Kevin, and several other students chimed in with bird stories of their own. Some kids took the opportunity for a moment of screen-staring, despite my admonition that what was out the window was better than anything they’d find on their phones. Most of the kids observed our winged friend, a muse of a different sort on this cold March day. “I still think it’s an owl,” said Janine.
The bird stayed for about four class periods. No one saw him leave, and I don’t know if he was actually hurt or not. But, thanks to his arrival, for at least one afternoon, we were all reminded what it means to wonder.