A falcon flew in to visit me. Four times, he soared from afar, twice through graceful flights of precision flying, and twice as an attack bird zeroing in on its prey.

The proud bird came with a purpose. At first, I thought it was for the chickens, particularly the small chick that cracked through its shell just four weeks earlier. Trailing after its mother hen, the white feathered fowl looked clumsy and lost without that maternal guidance in the bushes and grasses in the back yard.

The falcon first struck a statue of a monkey resting near the lower patio just outside the foyer window. The statue depicts a reclining chimp wearing glasses, and holding a book open with his hind legs and turning a page with one of his front  paws. Intelligence spreads across his ceramic face and furrowed forehead.

What a dumb animal, I say to no one in particular when the attack bird extends its claws over the head ot the statue, only to pull away after sweeping across  the rough stone. He must have thought it was a real animal, I thought.

While typing at a computer a day later, I sense something from the corner of my eye and almost immediately see this kamikaze bird fly right toward me. It crashed into the window and fell to the ground outside. It got as close to me as you are to the computer monitor right in front of you. He had targeted me!

No, I told my Self. He must have been thrown off from a reflection in the window. The bird made contact with the glass where I sat simply by accident. How could he have seen me inside the darkened room? He misjudged something, that’s all. 

I became sure of my reasoning on the third visit from my avian friend when my son and I were working on a car outside, toward the front of our house. “What’s that noise?” I asked. “It’s the rooster,”  my teenager said. “Better take a look, dad!”

Rushing up the front steps, I swung open the gate of our wooden fence and saw the bantam rooster flapping its wings like an airplane that can’t seem to get off the ground but continues to ride in circles. Up and down go the white feathers as he streaked across one section of lawn and then the other. He is not crowing, but squawking. Loudly. So loud I can’t tear my eyes away from him as I try to decide what kind of distress could  cause such a screeching sound.

The falcon! Perched on the concrete bird bath. Peering at me, but with its head turned down toward a bush where the new chick huddles with its mother hen.

(See Part II,  I will soar from up high with my message)

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