Our Buddy

Our Buddy

I picked my seven year old from school. He was very excited to see me.

 “ I think I saw your buddy today dad, but I’m not certain.”

He wasn’t talking about anyone who attended or worked at school he was talking about one of our favorite birds, the American Kestrel.

I’m a birdwatcher. Always have been since I was a kid. Near a church I attended as a young boy there was tall dead tree with a Kestrel nest inside. I would take a camera and a sketch book to document the tiny bird of prey as if I were a National Geographic Explorer. They’re not much bigger than a mourning dove yet they are raptors through and through. Their markings are bold with contrasting black and white markings along with complimentary colors of rusty orange a blue gray. They are bold, small, fierce and adorable all at once. 

There’s a nostalgia and a comfort to finding Kestrels for me. When we drive by open fields and spaces we look for them on trees or power lines. We find them almost everywhere we go. They remind me of home in a way, of the boy I was and the love I still have for them. 

Driving back from school my son and I pulled over to a field.  We both started looking. Well I was looking for a kestrel and my son was looking for quartz amongst the rocks and gravel.  There are three trees in the field, but the kestrel wasn’t there. Then I saw a little bump high, high up on a power line.  Binoculars confirmed it. “ I found our buddy.” 

My son came over, his pockets now bulging with rocks and maybe quartz. “ Yup,” he confirmed that’s our Buddy.”