A Capacity for Astonishment

The female Eastern Pondhawk and I wove and wound and waited in the clipped grass where Lake Cheston's dam slopes down to a small slough and the land fingers its way to the first wooden bridge.

When I first saw her, she was perched halfway across the dam on the dry earth.  One shot and then she was gone.  

When I found her again, she was looking for a perch in the dam's elbow, where the University mowers had shaved all the grasses and weeds.  This time, I followed her low flight, weaving across the finger and then disappearing.  I waited,  I scanned the grasses.  I walked halfway back across the dam.  I waited.  I walked back toward the slough and a bit down the bank.  I looked, and I looked, and I looked,  and suddenly there she was!  

Atop a Virginia Meadow Beauty!  Callou callay, I chortled, and snapped away!