Hawk Encounter

Last month, I wrote a post taking stock of where I was in my training halfway to Century Day. In it I made mention of a near miss with a hawk carrying prey as I was biking. A few of my friends have asked for more details so here we go.

The whole encounter was very brief. I was huffing it up a hill through Newbury in a dense area of forest. I was trying to do my usual routine of not looking more than 10 feet ahead so the hill wouldn't overwhelm me. All of a sudden out of nowhere, a huge hawk dangling some poor creature, flew right into my line of sight. He literally came within 6 feet of hitting me. It was so close, in fact, that I couldn't help thinking he did it deliberately to show off his catch for the day. Then off he went, crossing the road and back into the forest.

I've had so many animal encounters since I've been out riding. Some involve the unpleasantness of passing roadkill. But most involve seeing live birds, rabbits, chipmunks, turtles, cows, horses, and turkeys carrying on with their daily activities (except in one unfortunate instance years ago, I did have an unpleasant and humiliating experience of being chased by wild turkeys while biking...more on that in another post). None, though, have been as unique and memorable as my hawk encounter.