The world is a mask that hides the real world.
Thatâs what everybody suspects, though the world we see wonât let us dwell on it long.
The world has ways - more masks - of getting our attention.
The suspicion sneaks in now and again, between the cracks of everyday existenceâ¦the bird song dips, rises, dips, trails off into blue sky silence before the note that would reveal the shape of a melody that, somehow, would tie everything together, on the verge of unmasking the hidden armature that frames this sky, this tree, this bird, this quivering green leaf, jewels in a crown.â¦
As the song dies, the secret withdraws.
The tree is a mask.
The sky is a mask.
The quivering green leaf is a mask.
The song is a mask.
The singing bird is a mask.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
a sad end for young Kalani
Missing falcon turns up dead
by Deirdre Cox Baker, Quad-Cities Times, 16 June 2005
by Deirdre Cox Baker, Quad-Cities Times, 16 June 2005
On three previous occasions, MidAmerican Energy Co. employee David Sebben was able to find missing Peregrine falcon chicks and return them to their nest high atop the utility company building in downtown Davenport.
The fourth such instance did not have a happy ending, though.
A young Peregrine missing since Saturday night or Sunday morning was killed when it was run over by two cars, Sebben said Wednesday.
Sebben, who oversees the falcon family, said he was contacted Tuesday by a passer-by who had seen the chick hit by the vehicles about 3:30 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of Harrison and 2nd streets.
He said the witness wrapped the dead bird in a towel and was unsure what to do with the remains until learning a public appeal for help in finding it had been made through the news media.
Sebben retrieved the 40-day-old, named Kalani, from the witness, took its identifying tags off to be returned to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and said he plans to bury the bird. The MidAmerican building technician regularly watches the activities of Kalani's parents though a window near his office and reports back to state wildlife authorities.
This is the first chick to die in such a manner since the falcons arrived in downtown Davenport four years ago. They have nested on the Centennial Bridge as well as the MidAmerican building. Sebben retrieved three Peregrine chicks that also left the nest at the end of their fledgling period and ended up in places such as the roof of the nearby Radisson Quad-City Plaza Hotel. Those chicks successfully returned to the wild, he believes.
Pat Schlarbaum, a state wildlife biologist, said the raptors are enticed to nesting sites such as the tall MidAmerican structure because there are few natural predators in an urban setting. In the wild, animals such as raccoons try to harm the baby birds, he explained.
About 60 percent of raptors do not survive a year, he said.
"That doesn't lessen the sting of the loss of this young chick. But it's one reason to be thankful for the adults and hope they will nest again next year. We'll hope for a better outcome," he added.
The falcon species was decimated by the pesticide DDT, which was banned in 1972. Falconers brought the raptors back to Iowa in the 1980s and the state population has grown slowly. Peregrine falcons are on Iowa's Endangered Species List although they have been taken off the national list.
Kalani was banded when she was 27 days old by Schlarbaum and local falconer Tom Deckert. The experts described her as a robust bird who had fluffy white down that was beginning to give way to black and brown feathers.
Schlarbaum will return to the Quad-Cities next week to check out a possible Peregrine falcon nest on the Interstate 80 bridge.
