Blue Spruce Park
Pennsylvania
May 2005
Suddenly a commotion trailside. Big wings! It’s a hawk, a Red-tail streaking and whizzing around a tree, circling like crazy, fast, fast. I’m surprised I don’t see tire screech marks in the air. It’s chasing a chipmunk. So this is why chipmunks chase each other up and down tree trunks. Have you ever seen them? They don’t go straight up and down, they make helixes. They’re in training, practicing survival skills.
Funny, as chipmunk is the Chippewa word for “one who descends trees headlong.” Not in my world.
A calm in the action. The hawk perches on a nearby branch, facing the other direction. Every so often he looks over his shoulder, checking in. That hawk gathers a ton of information during the brief head turn. It can see the hairs inside the ‘munk’s ears. The chipmunk, meanwhile, clings to the tree, chirping, challenging, its little chest rapidly heaving. Yikes! Were that me, I’d be scared chipless.