Leaving the Nest

“Have you been dive bombed by the hawk yet?”

The question comes from my neighbor, Larry, standing at the end of his driveway putting out his garbage cans.

“I have,” he tells me, “and I have talon marks to prove it.” He points to the bike helmet on his head and explains it as hawk protection. He goes on to list all the neighbors who have recently been given a clear message by the hawk parents: too close, get away. The male and female birds fiercely protect their nest from predators like crows, raccoons, other falcons—and, apparently, people.

It’s an intense under taking to help these young into the world. The female hawk stays on the nest almost exclusively for the 34-36 days it takes the eggs to incubate and then for another two weeks after the eggs hatch. The male hunts and brings food to her and the young birds.

At the same time this hawk family is preparing to send three babies off into the world, my own chicks are spreading their wings. Soon they too will be fledging.

In shooing people away from the nest, the defending hawk approaches from the back. My neighbors who have experienced it say there’s no warning until you hear the rush of wings through the air and perhaps get a knock on the head. By then, well, it’s too late.

Luckily I have not been chased away despite a few attempts to locate the nest in the tree. Lingering in the vicinity is clearly not a good idea. So despite my curiosity and wonder, I keep moving.

The hatchlings emerge from their eggs with a short coat of fluffy white and buff down. Over the next week or so, they develop a longer coat of thermal down, are able to regulate their own temperature, and start to move around the nest.

By week three, they have juvenile feathers on their wings and tail. They have started to move beyond the nest, hopping onto branches, flapping their wings and leaping at the tree trunk and small branches to practice grasping and balancing. The female continues to stand guard from a nearby branch.

I feel a bit like the hawk mother right now, suddenly hyper-vigilant and over-wrought because my fledglings are perched precariously on the side of our nest, the last few downy feathers waving on their necks. In a month, we will load a van full of furniture and personal belongings, drive our two sons plus one long-time live-in girlfriend and one summer live-in girlfriend 1800 miles away. And leave them there. All on their own.

Just like the hawks, we have a nest full of fledglings. I’m uncertain what this flying thing will look like. Will there be immediate and easy soaring? Certainly there will be growing pains as they become more independent. Except I will not be perched on the branch just above them to flap my wings and bare my talons at perceived predators.

One day our local bird expert and neighbor announces on our neighborhood website that the hawks have finally left the nest but are still in the area. The hawk parents have a few more weeks of feeding the young birds while teaching them to hunt on their own. I imagine it to be similar to our encouraging the kids to finish off the frozen pizzas in the freezer and take advantage of a few more home cooked meals before they became totally responsible for procuring food and feeding themselves. Granted, the kids’ task seems a bit easier than that of a young hawk zooming through the woods trying to catch small birds and other prey. But still.

And then comes the sad news that two of the young birds have been injured, both flying into windows. Both are taken to the local birds of prey rehab center. The third seems to be faring well. When I tell my husband about the window bashing, he quips, “Well the third and uninjured one is probably a girl.” Indeed. Female Cooper’s Hawks are larger and tend to fledge a bit later. Having raised two boys with him, I have to laugh.

Of course, I wonder what form the window bashing might take with our own young flyers. It’s an exciting time but also ripe with risk. I mean, does it really seem like a good idea to fling oneself into the air from high on a branch? And does it really seem like a good idea to drive your kids thousands of miles away, shove them out into their own apartment (after buying them dressers and decorating their bathrooms) and drive away? Why don’t they start from lower down? Why weren’t they starting out a tiny bit closer to home? Are my chicks launching from an optimal height?

As I anticipate their flight, my insides feel wobbly, my appetite questionable. Although I am trying to remain open and curious about what this empty nest thing will look and feel like, right now I am mostly anxious and sad. When my husband and I arrive back home one day and both the kid’s cars are gone while they are at work, he says, “See, in three weeks, this is how the driveway will look all the time, the new normal!” I am uncertain whether to cry or cheer.

There’s a huge part of me that feels ready. Ready for me, ready for them. That is ready to stop counting cars in the driveway and accounting for everyone’s whereabouts. Ready to have my clean kitchen counter stay clean, to stop finding hiding places for the good towels and premium ice cream, to not have to tell anyone to clean up their mess of discarded energy-drink cans and wet bath towels. Did you know—actually, OF COURSE you know—that the mother bird keeps the nest tidy by removing shells and waste from the nest? That she eats any parts of the prey the young birds cannot eat or digest and she tidies up after each feeding? Alas, once they start self-feeding in the nest, it becomes littered with partly eaten prey—hence the term fouling the nest.

Which is perhaps why I am fantasizing about having a dumpster delivered and throwing out half the contents of the house once they’re gone. I’ve already told my husband to prepare himself to come home one day and find I’ve taken a box cutter to the nasty carpet in the kids’ rooms and dragged it out into the garage.

And yet. I can hardly remember what it was like to live in a house without kids. In the past few years, I haven’t done a lot of care taking for them but their energy is in the house. And when they turn up in the afternoon after work or join us for dinner or I hear the squeak of a bedroom door, I rest assured they are accounted for for another day, my chickies still safely tucked into the nest.

My husband keeps saying to me, “it’s going to be okay.” I know he’s right. That once I get through the transition itself, once I actually say goodbye to them, once I drive away and set out towards home, it will be fine. The question is how to make it through to that part. It’s always hardest for me when I’m staring the object of my goodbye in the face.

And so I have to make a plea to those around me. It goes like this: I’m sorry if I’m cranky like the hawks over the next few weeks. Please forgive me if I swoop down over your head squawking and beating my wings or if I bonk you in the head with my talons. My birdies will fly, I will feel less afraid and I’ll fly a little freer too.