Fang and Feather

They are the bird hawks - the goshawk, Cooper's hawk, and sharp-shinned hawk - and are experts at keeping out of sight...The sharp-shinned, smallest of the trio, preys on small birds. The other two take larger birds as well - chickens too when readily accessible. However, these birds are not the blackguards they may seem.

Welcome to the Audubon Nature Encyclopedia, a thousand-page passport to a world where birds are guilty until proven innocent.

The Sixties, I suppose, were a different time. Hunting black people for sport had just been outlawed, women were finally guaranteed adequate grazing lands and Congress had officially declared war on trees. And science, having successfully burdened the heart and mind of every child with the knowledge of impending thermonuclear apocalypse, contentedly turned its attention to frogs and stuff. Their findings? Hawks may not be as evil as we thought.

The fourteen volumes of this encyclopedia were given to me yesterday by a friend who knows my affinity for naturalism. I am a long-time birdwatcher and work as a fishing guide in Alaska for part of every year, where I am in close and constant contact with brown bears. So imagine my surprise when I learned that

Before the use of repeating rifles the grizzly was lord over all it surveyed. It openly took what it wanted and none dared question its right. Both the Indian and the white settlers stepped aside as it marched triumphantly along the trail. With the introduction of modern firearms the grizzly recognized defeat and has taught its children to shun the highways of civilization and seek safety in flight when the hated scent of man flows down the breeze.

This encyclopedia must be the only surviving history of the Human-Animal War of Always. In order that we may learn from our mistakes, preserve the deep liability of the mid-Twentieth-Century's attitude towards the environment and renew our dominion over the avaricious, hubristic bears, I intend to read all fourteen books and record here their most nonsensical passages.



Traitor.