I got a call from my step-mom the other day telling me I probably ought to grab my binoculars and come into town (”town” being the middle of residential northside Atlanta). Some kind of big bird–probably a hawk, she figured–was raising a family in the top of one of her magnolia trees.

Whoa! What a sight. Did you know that a red-tailed hawk nestling is a big ball of snow-white fluff? Actually these two young were big enough to be upright in the nest, looking quite interested in the question of when their mother would arrive with their next meal. Pure white they were, with a bit of black marking their eyes, and we could hear a clear, drawn-out, high-pitched k-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-r, an infant version of the adult hawk’s call.

It was an interesting sighting for a number of reasons–not the least of which was that it called into question most of what I had written about this bird in The Armchair Birder. In the first place, why were we seeing baby hawks in late June? Redtails–at least according to the experts I consulted–are early nesters, with eggs in the nest by March or early April at the latest.

I had also written that, while I certainly had redtails in my woods and saw them regularly cruising the treetops or circling high overhead, I was unlikely ever to find their nest. The bird is so skittish, I wrote, that “you can’t get within a hundred yards of one,” and dependable Arthur Cleveland Bent maintained that if you wanted to observe the home life of these birds, you needed a blind that offered “absolute concealment.” But here we all were–me, brother Richard, step-mom Camille–standing in her driveway with our binoculars gawking away as the mother bird flew in to the nest no more than fifty feet above our heads.

In one respect, though, I believe I was correct. I was defending the redtail against Audubon’s charge (and a popular opinion in his day) that the redtail was the notorious “chicken hawk.” Audubon believed the Louisiana Creoles of his acquaintaince had good reason to call this bird the grand mangeur des poules, given its inclination to “visit the farm-houses, to pay its regards to the poultry.”

Well, I don’t know what that mama bird was fetching home for dinner, but I know this: You’ll find tennis courts and swimming pools aplenty in Camille’s neighborhood, but you ain’t gonna find any chicken coops.

Sorry about the hiatus. My computer had to go to the hospital (memory implant), and as soon as it was discharged, the World Tour cranked back up.

Last week’s stop was Highlands, North Carolina, where I delivered something called the Zahner Conservation Lecture on Thursday evening (modesty prevents me from describing the audience’s wildly enthusiastic response) then signed books at the town’s independent bookstore, Cyrano’s, on Saturday.

As you approach Highlands, signs announce that you are entering a bird sanctuary, and I believe they’re telling the truth. On Friday, equipped with an I-pod on which was stored every conceivable bird song, the gracious, funny, and very knowledgeable John Stowers led some dozen of us on a bird hike along the Bartram trail to a destination called White Rock. We saw scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings, and an assortment of warblers, among other species. Even I, your binoculars-challenged armchair birder, had great looks at black-and-white and chestnut-sided warblers. Other folks in the party saw hooded and black-throated blues. It was almost enough to make a person want to go birding.

Yo! Big shout-out to Clair Simpson, proprietor of Cyrano’s–more proof that the independent bookstore is alive and kicking.