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.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
what have we lost?
Young peregrine falcon hatched downtown growing more able
by Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune, 30 July 2005
A 72-day-old female falcon rests upon the hand of the angel Moroni atop the LDS temple during the sunset hours on Thursday July 28, 2005. (Stephen Holt/for the Salt Lake Tribune)
by Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune, 30 July 2005
She hangs around Temple Square, no chick any more but too young to set out on her own.
This peregrine falcon is likely to be the only fledgling this year to make it in downtown Salt Lake City.
Spotters have seen her watch the world's comings and goings from her perch on the Salt Lake Temple, partway down Moroni's trumpet. They call her "Slowpoke" and say she wails to her dad to distraction sometimes.
Her brother and sister did not fare as well. Her sister, the eldest of three hatched on a Main Street rooftop, crashed on one of her first forays into the downtown canyons. She died a few days later.
The brother, dubbed "Sideline," remains in the raptor equivalent of rehab. He can't fly, and he relies on a human to feed him chicken or to chop up a mouse for his meals. He struggles to keep his balance. He has been this way for a month. "This bird's got problems," said Jo Stafford, a bird rehabilitator. She has nursed him since falcon-watching volunteers discovered the dazed fledgling on a 100 South sidewalk, next to a sushi bar. "There is significant damage there that's preventing him from doing appropriate things for his age and his species."
Clayton M. White, a Brigham Young University zoology professor, has seen this sort of thing before in his 50-year career studying peregrines.
"They get brain damaged, there's no doubt about it," said White, whose book Peregrine Quest: From a Naturalist's Field Book, comes out this fall.
He recalled a photo from the Chicago Tribune a few years ago. It showed a young peregrine on a busy street. Passers-by eyed it like an odd duck.
"It's a very common phenomenon," White said.
Slowpoke had a few worrisome crashes too. Volunteer spotters rescued her three times. They twice took her to Stafford for a health check.
"She could've easily ended up like her sister," said Bob Walters of Utah's Watchable Wildlife program. However, she's gradually gotten more nimble, more capable. She cruises between the temple and the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, just off Temple Square.
You might see Walters, wearing a neon orange vest and binoculars, checking up on Slowpoke over the weekend. He often looks for her near the beehive on the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.
She's a "peregrine," a wanderer. So, she will probably head out of the city in the fall. In Utah's wild canyons, she could mingle with her own kind. An estimated 150 of the birds live in the state.
Slowpoke may be drawn back to her city birthplace in the spring. The right male could change that and persuade her to settle in a desert canyon.
As for her brother, it's unlikely he will return to the wild, although that's where Walters wants to see him. Another possibility: The bird could wind up in an education program, not as student but as teacher.
White, the peregrine scholar, likes people to learn about peregrines.
"It opens up a whole new window of experiences that many people have lost."
A 72-day-old female falcon rests upon the hand of the angel Moroni atop the LDS temple during the sunset hours on Thursday July 28, 2005. (Stephen Holt/for the Salt Lake Tribune)
