I dread the annual pasture-mowing for a number of reasons. First, I don't trust my inherited tractor on the Flint Hills; it's top-heavy and too powerful for its weight, with a tendency to want to jump as you let off the clutch. I'm extra-darned careful with it and don't trust it for an instant. Second, it's normally hot and miserable out there this time of year and mowing takes a full afternoon. Third, I don't want to mow because it alters the prairie ecology, cutting down forbs before they bloom (particularly stealing milkweeds from the migrating monarchs). But its a necessity to control the sumac and thistles.
This year, however, I had a close observer the whole time, watching the every move of the loud green machine and tired primate riding it. Watching me, literally, like a hawk. To be specific, watching me like a red-tailed hawk, hoping, I'm sure, that I would flush out dinner in the form of a nice prairie mouse or rabbit.I first spotted it atop my barn gate about 1/2 hour after I started mowing. Since I always have an iPhone handy, I stopped and opened the camera app, only to be immediately disappointed as I zoomed in and it began to fly away ( 2nd photo, left).Thankfully, it came back, again and again, first on the same gate as seen in the 3rd paragraph (I'll leave you to decipher the meaning of the Greek language "Molon Labe" sign), then on a fence post (4th paragraph, on the left), and then on a native Mulberry tree (here, right), always nearby as I went round and round the pasture. I apologize for the pictures; I wish they were clearer, but alas, the iPhone was all I had available, placed at full zoom, and held as still as I could on a vibrating, roaring tractor. And the stark, full sunlight in a cloudless July prairie sky also isn't good "photo-quality" lighting.