Jason McNeil

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The hawks and I have history.

Not these particular hawks, mind you, but I'm still irked at one of their California brethren for snatching and carrying off the tail of a rattlesnake I'd laid out to dry in the angry, midday desert sun. How many more times in my life will I just happen to have a loaded vintage six-shooter in Canyon Country when my horse stumbles upon an angry rattler? That hawk just swooped down out of the sky, snatched my trophy tail right up in its beak -- presumably for the little bit of meat still attached -- and off he flew into the wild blue yonder.

Suffice it to say that, based on my limited experience, I've no great love for hawks. My photographer buddy Daaave Summers, however, remains quite a fan of our local covey of hawks, even though they took a few dives at us while he took a smoke break outside Photo USA on Franklin Road. (By the way, that's not a typo. He really spells his name with three A's. Chalk it up to artistic temperament.)

Daaave's done a fair amount of magazine photo work for me over the years, and I'd dropped by his studio to check out some pictures he'd color corrected. As we stood outside and talked, we were both startled by a couple of honest-to-goodness hawks buzzing us like Maverick and Goose doing a tower flyby.

"They're just playing," Daaave said. "They nest over by the [U.S.] 581 on-ramp, and this is sort of their territory."

Granted, my grasp of Appalachian fauna isn't the tightest, but I didn't even know we had hawks in the Star City.

"Oh, yeah," Summers said. "They've been here for about three years. They're practically neighbors."

I asked my friend if he was bothered even a bit by all the dive-bombing.

"Nah, they don't do it too often -- you just got lucky today."

Daaave and I obviously have vastly differing definitions of "lucky."

"Besides," he added cheerily, "they eat the groundhogs, and that's fabulous. We hate the groundhogs! They tear up our yard and lot, so more hawks equals less groundhogs. Win-win, if you ask me."

They carry off entire groundhogs? Time to go inside.

Once inside, Daaave commenced to digging around in his personal stash of picture DVDs (in addition to the daily grind at Photo USA, Daaave burns the midnight oil running his own studio, A3 Productions, and always has a half-dozen or so pic discs -- in varying degrees of organization -- close at hand), pulling out one shiny silver disc after another, popping them in and out of a handy computer until he found the one he wanted.

"Here it is!" he said proudly. "I shot this really great picture of one of the hawks on my lunch break last week. I was standing outside, like we were just now, and saw one way across the street and up past the on-ramp.

They're red-tailed hawks, so they're huge and pretty easy to spot, but getting a picture has been tough. Luckily, a photographer buddy of mine had just purchased this extra-long lens -- ridiculously long -- and just happened to have it here with him. The lens was so long that, after I clicked it on, I had to stand behind him and rest it on his shoulder to aim the camera. I took four shots, and here's the one that came out."

To his credit, it is a really good shot, so I've included it here for your perusal. According to Daaave, who seems well-versed in the ways of red-tailed hawks, the winged beasties are putting down roots.

"There were just one or two three years ago," he said, "and now they've got a little family going. Sometimes you'll see three in a tree."

So, to our new hawk neighbors, let us be the first to say "Welcome to the neighborhood!" Groundhogs are on us.