Sometimes life in Hand Cove seems to come straight out of a nature documentary. Last week I saw a half-dozen young bucks proudly displaying velvet-covered antlers in the margin of woods behind the goldfish pond. Yesterday morning I glanced out the window immediately after awakening and alarmed two young fawns frolicking only a few steps from the house.
On nearly every morning bike ride I see several deer, but day before yesterday on a very early ride I peddled right beside one standing on the edge of the road, either still not fully awake or too dazzled to move by my full roadie regalia of gaudy Lycra fabrics.
Perhaps the most dramatic of my wildlife encounters occurred on today's ride. There is a red-tailed hawk that I have been seeing near the junction of Hand Cove Road and Highway 412. As I cruised up that stretch of asphalt this morning, I must have startled it as it hunted for some small animal in the roadside weeds. It launched itself in the air with graceful flapping of wings and a few high-pitched shrieks and glided across the road directly in front of me, so close that I could almost have reached out to stroke the soft feathers of its back and tail. I have come almost as close to bald eagles on two different occasions while kayaking. . . . The bike and the kayak are the stealth tools of the accidental naturalist.
