Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment

The sun rises over the Tetons, softening their youthful roughness in layers of pale light. This is raptor country, a fact which causes me some confusion as I spy massive dark shadows flying swiftly over farmland through the morning haze.

These fields which, now graced by sunlight, glow with a green so yellow it’s as if this corner of country has been highlighted. I want to annotate everything, weeks later still beset by the confusion of broken trust, even as attempts to mend are made. Raptor calls are common—this early hour has them furtive in the hunt. I make out a shape atop a hay bale only just in time to watch it leap, feet first, into high grass. It’s a flurry of fluffy white pantaloons and reaching talons, broad wings catching the last inch of air before the ground, robust body somehow never touching. As it takes off, smoothly enough though neither quickly nor gracefully, I wonder at the hour and the breadth of the bird: could it have been an owl?

Looking around the fields I learn that not only Kestrels and Kingfishers hover—I spy a small dark falcon at work, suspended in the air with seemingly little effort. There is a reservoir nearby, so that every other electricity pole is graced by such a gathering of tree parts as to make a retrieving dog blush. The nests of osprey are easy to spot: all sticks, no twigs, protruding in every direction from what seems haphazard but is obviously a very stable home to raise a brood. In the early light the families are spending time together, parents visibly feeding their young in one nest. In another, two adult birds seem to be chatting.

I take myself to the water. A great blue heron hunts, slowly stalking in the shallow, reedy, mucky shores. A stilt stands in the solid mud on shore, exactly as you’d expect of it. Enter an osprey, wings wide, dipping her talons into the water as she flies. It’s hard to tell if she is swooping to hunt something or simply enjoying the cool wet on her toes. I have barely formed the question when a larger bird cruises in, directing its energy toward the osprey. A chase begins, and now I wonder if the first bird does have something in her claws that the larger bird is chasing. Ominously, a third bird swoops down into the drama. Now it’s two eagles, a couple, staking what must be territorial claims against my peaceful osprey. I wonder absently if there’s a teaching here as I watch the giant partners in pursuit of the lither bird. Something about the arbitrary nature of territory and competition. It’s clear that either eagle might catch the osprey if it was inclined, but the pair comes shy of attacking. The osprey, dogged after a while, flies off into the grand sky over the wide water. The bigger birds circle once before alighting again, separately in their respective tops of trees, on either side of their bay. Unperturbed, the heron and stilt remain on the shoreline.