This has been quite the year, hasn’t it? If you need a break, stick around, though I can’t promise it won’t make you squeamish.

I believe in letting nature do its thing. And by that I mean on some level life only exists to feed other life. “Remember, man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.” One of the few lines from church I remember. Oddly.

I grow plants** to feed insects and birds. Insects feed birds and other creatures. Little creatures feed big creatures. A hawk has as much right to feed her babies as a robin does.

I do believe that, truly. But do I have to watch?

Here’s what happened. A robin couple chose the tree outside my bathroom window to build their nest. They’ve done this before. It seemed to be the preferred location (location, location) for the second brood, since the leaves were fully out. Close to the house, it must have felt safe. And I had a primo view! I’d get to see the little ones get fed, grow up, poop over the side, flap about, and, ultimately, leave to find their way in this world.

Until…

Imagine my horror one day when rounding the garage, I flushed a hawk out of the tree. The tree where my robin family was supposed to be safe and secure!

Did the hawk get the babies? Did the hawk get one or both of the parents? It all happened so fast, a squall of dogwood petals*** and blurred flash of wings. I couldn’t tell if she carried away anything. For hours no adult came to the nest. The light of day dimmed into evening. I hadn’t actually seen the nestlings yet, they were too small. I’d only seen a parent perched over them with a beak full of gooey caterpillars or bugs.

Finally, as I opened the window before my shower, two little heads popped up, mouths open! They lived!

But then, I didn’t see a parent for the rest of the day. No way the babies would survive the night without a meal or warm mom. This is when some people call the local wildlife rehabber. I’m not one of those people. What would happen would happen. My only consolation was that the babies were still so small they probably wouldn’t suffer. They’d just go to sleep and not wake up. Worst case would be older nestlings who could cry out in hunger for their parent, knowing what should be happening but wasn’t. So I fretted. If there were flies buzzing around the nest in the morning, I’d have my sad answer.

There were no flies. I don’t know how long it took to confirm, but lo and behold, a parent showed up with food. A head popped up! Alive!

I spent the next several days watching diligently. I never saw two adult robins together at the nest. That was unusual. But I wasn’t perched there 24/7. They could come and go without my seeing them. I also never saw more than one baby head pop up. Didn’t mean the other(s) weren’t just sleeping.

The hawk came back. Now she knew where a meal sat, vulnerable, waiting.

Robins in general are vigilant. At dusk on many evenings, several had mobbed a barred owl in a white pine pretty far from the house. Literally dive bombing the poor creature who only wanted to feed her own babies.

The hawk didn’t get so physically mobbed, but loud complaints brought me to the door. I’d step out to see her in a tree near the nest and take off at my approach. Day after day, this happened. Robin’s call the alarm, I run outside, hawk takes off. She must have been pretty annoyed with me. Was I the only one keeping her from succeeding? Was it now my responsibility?

Because once you know, you know. And then you are compelled to react. You are the one in the woods hearing the tree fall. That makes you complicit, like it or not. (Would be nice if that lesson applied to humans in dire straits. What is it about “Never again” that people don’t understand? But I said this would be a break. Of a sort.)

I don’t know if anything bad happened to one of the robin parents. I don’t know what happened to the other little nestling I’d seen. But a fledgling grew, with his tiny Einstein feathers sprouting on each side of his head. Small wings flapping in exercise. Hopping around the side of the nest—I feared he’d fall off. It seemed clear he was about ready to leave, and, frankly, that would be for the best as it would be easier to hop about and hide than be trapped in that perfect target of grass and dried mud.

Once more, the hawk attacked. I don’t know if Junior was gone by then. I don’t think the hawk got anything in that last strafing. But the nest was now empty. The robin parent(s) gone. Hopefully everyone safely melted into the crowd of birds lining up for the bath or off to the pines.

My job was done. To the best of my ability. I could breathe easy.

Until…

Today, a cardinal couple flew back and forth, to and from the tree. The male (a truly handsome dude in deep red and crisp black) served as escort to the female (who looks quite pathetic in a molt, no crest, bald around the eyes) bringing grass blades to finish off a beautiful cup of leaves and birch bark, just a few feet from the old, now empty, robin nest.

What the hell were they thinking? Didn’t they notice the hawk flying around? The catbirds out back had their own dramas defending their little ones in the laurel thicket.

Dear hawk, might I recommend the voles and mice. Avoid the chipmunk, though, if you will. How about a nice plump rabbit?

Just don’t make me watch.

*Apologies to Tennyson. I haven’t read the full poem, “In Memoriam A. H. H.” What I’ve read about it seems fitting. I, too, lost a friend at a young age.

**Really, my wife grows them. I dig holes and put up deer-proof fences.

***I know, not technically petals. They are bracts. And this is a Kousa dogwood, late flowering. And yes, it’s nonnative, and I should remove it, but it provides shade for an ephemeral garden.