WHITE HAWK?

Many springs, summers and falls I flew gliders in northern Vermont where the moist climate results in lavishly beautiful scenery. That New England weather however, plus having only lower performance ships to fly, kept me from straying far from home. The one ten mile ridge downwind of our airport became so familiar that I could put myself to sleep at night, not by counting sheep, but visualizing each fold and roll in the hillside that I hugged hundreds of times to the far end and back.

We rarely saw eagles there, but soared with hawks daily. And what a blessing! They mark lift with amazing accuracy yet never get in the way, and don’t seem to mind us in the least. One might be parked above a slope, facing into the wind with its head down, hovering motionless over some unsuspecting prey, and when we glide by at any proximity its only reaction would be to glance up briefly, then return its focus to the hunt.

Of course in a limited number of square miles the hawk population amounts to only a few individuals, and to a human passing by at 50 knots they all look pretty much alike. Where one hawk’s range ends and another’s begins is clear to them, surely, but we could have no way of knowing. Except...

One spring I was high above a broad area of canopy forest and saw a single white spot on the sea of rich green foliage. At first I thought it was a plastic shopping bag lofting in the wind, but it was moving across the wind so it had to be some kind of bird. I’d never seen any white bird around here large enough to spot from such a distance. A goose perhaps… but one all by itself? Hmm. I wanted to fly down for a better view, but that was too low on the hill to be sure of regaining enough height to reach home. Oh well, probably never see it again anyway.

Then a few days later there it was again, this time much higher, but before I could close in for a good look it dove into the trees. That happened several more times as the season progressed, always somewhere along the same five-mile stretch of ridge, and the more I saw of it the more it looked like a big hawk – a pure white one. Eventually I caught it roosting in a high treetop and looking the other way. I set up a careful approach and swept in behind the big bird low and fast, reaching our nearest point before it startled and took wing. It was a hawk alright, about the size of a small turkey. An albino red-tail, believe it or not!

But where others of the species are downright brazen about holding their own airspace, why was this one so elusive? I’m no ornithologist, but have to wonder if the albino knew somehow that it’s plumage was a warning beacon instead of effective camouflage, and instinctively adopted more covert methods. Interesting to speculate, but no way to know. Supposing no other humans knew anything of my albino hawk, I almost wrote a piece about it for the local paper but decided not to for fear that somebody with more firepower than brains would be inspired to kill it. Under those terms, all I could do was continue to observe.

October in that region is when hawks of all kinds migrate south, funneling from vast forests across Quebec onto the singular ridges of New England and Appalachia. About the time those first migrants arrived my albino friend disappeared. Generally, they return from winter migration to occupy the same territory year after year. Would the albino come back as well?

Sure enough, next spring the big white bird returned to reclaim its previous domain. Again its habits were reclusive, but familiarity brings benefits and more than once it let me near enough to see that this season it sported one big feather of normal coloration on its left wing.

And then it came back a third year. This time its albinism was not so brilliant, a softer creamy shade, with several more feathers of conventional color. And yes, it seemed also less elusive, more bold about allowing itself to be seen. That summer I finally had the pleasure of soaring wing to wing with the majestic beast, even making eye contact at times, just as with all its ordinary cousins.

After that third year it did not return – or had it continued to outgrow the albinism, now able to oversee its section of Paradise without the odd burden of a vivid disguise? We’ll never know. Either way, that ended the white hawk phase of my story, just one more in the growing list of wonderful, unique, always open-ended experiences accessible only to soaring pilots. So many such marvels have accumulated by now, it’s hard to imagine whatever could come next.

Only one way to find out…