Pukeko & Hawk: a tale of longing and fear

The paddock on our right is being grown for hay this summer. Throughout spring the grass grew long and luscious. The equinox winds would rush up the valley, sweeping it to one side, making it bow and rise in hypnotising waves.

With no cattle grazing there, the pukeko moved in and I would frequently see their glossy dark heads bobbing along in the grass. In early summer, just before Christmas, the tractors came in and within two days it was cut, turned and baled in huge rounds. The ground was left bare and stubbly. For those first few days the hawks scoured the paddock, lazily circling above and coming in low for long sweeps. The pukeko, now feasting on grubs disturbed by the tractors, would squawk and cry every time the hawk swooped; warning each other and making a racket in a show of strength.

All this I registered only dimly. The noise of the pukeko is a regular feature here. Every time I walk within 100 metres of them they start up. They had retreated into the background, their calling was a ‘cry wolf’ that I no longer took seriously.

Since the first cut of hay, the paddock has grown again. Not the lush green grass of spring, but a shorter, dappled spread, thick with clover. The pukeko are still there, with clutches of chicks.

Yesterday they left the paddock and made themselves at home in the garden. It’s common to have visits. There are always at least two adults roaming the lawn, getting as close to the vege garden as they can before I knock on a window at them, or the dog rushes out to stamp her authority. But yesterday I counted at least 6 adults and as many youngsters. Not babies, but not quite teenagers yet. The adults were still feeding some, and keeping others in line when they fell too far behind. They were nosing around the glasshouse and the blackberry bushes and out into the open lawn. And then the hawk came.

Watching a hawk fly low through our garden is thrilling. And terrifying. The very first time it happened, it felt like encountering a shark. Something about the slow, languid movement, the quick turns they take, the peeling away and the coming back. Seeing it return, coming in low; manoeuvring between trees; turning its head and understanding that it is catching every small movement…

All the pukeko ran for cover. Into and under bushes in all directions. Adults separated from chicks, chicks dashed back into the open. The hawk came back again, lower this time. The adults raised a hell of a racket.

I should have seen it coming. That morning, having breakfast outside, I noticed a shape out of place. The treeline becomes so familiar, after a time we can notice the smallest of changes.

It was perched on the second highest branch of a cypress tree, about 80 metres down the garden. Wings pulled in behind like a cape drawn tightly around its body, it was the shape of an upside down teardrop. It was watching, actively looking, its small head turning from side to side, sometimes leaning over and looking directly down. Then it tipped forward, as if on a fulcrum, tail in the air, and dove down.

A few minutes later it was back. Or there was another. It landed in the pine tree next to the creek. These were signs that there was prey around. But it only made sense to me after seeing the interaction between the hawk and the pukeko in the garden. We kept the kittens inside the rest of the day, being the size of pukeko youngsters themselves. The children were nervous and constantly checked they hadn’t escaped outside. I admit I did the same.

So this morning when I heard a racket in the paddock, and when I saw the low-flying hawk, and because I knew there were young pukeko there, I ran outside.

From under the cypress trees I watched the hawk on the ground amongst the clover, pulling and tugging at something I couldn’t see, while three adult pukeko flapped and cried for all they were worth. The hawk flew up and away but it did not leave. I crouched under the trees and watched, with a dog and cat for company, as the hawk circled time and again. It stayed low and flew over those pukeko seven or eight times. I watched for ten minutes. Each time the birds would crow loudly. I saw the youngsters and more adults tight against the fenceline where the grass was thicker and longer. At one point the hawk landed some distance away and just sat and watched them.

After a while I left, and the hawk must have left and the pukeko must have meandered back into the paddock to search for grubs. Because, for animals, staying alive is not just staying safe from predators, it also eating. All the time, eating.

All is quiet now. I don’t know how it will end. I know it will never end. The pukeko chicks will eventually become adults. There will be more pukeko chicks. Meanwhile the hawk nests and has its own young to feed, and they will grow to rule the sky next season. All is life and death, famine and glut.

It reminded me of something else, this dance between predator and prey, the balance of thrill and fear, the necessary living of lives. Like the flustered cries of the pukeko, sometimes it is our fear that we notice first. A fear that points like an arrow, directing our attention skyward toward what we really want, toward something powerful that wants us to see it. Other times, like the quiet arrival of a hawk, it is the desire that is clear and only later do we hear our insides nervously clatter in response.

Longing and fear, calling each other forward. It never ends.