We had just left the cabin, hadn't yet found the dead horse, hadn't even rolled 100 meters, when the cell phone rang.

That's a rude awakening out here in this empty peace.

Dispatch calling, with a woman who reports having an "injured hawk or baby eagle." Dispatch is calling me because both wardens are out of town, and this woman is close to where I live.

Nice, but I'm almost 90 miles from there. Time-wise, the wardens are closer. At least they could drive on highways all the way to get back. But we're headed home anyway, and as of yet unaware of the delay that was coming up with the dead horse, so I take the report. And call the woman back. (Cell signal was fine here, only two miles from the horse.)

She's unsure what she's got, but they found it in their yard last night, unable to fly, and brought it inside. Tried releasing it this morning, after the storms were gone, but it still couldn't fly. So this bird, which she is sure is a hawk, has taken over one of their bedrooms. As in, having full reign of the entire bedroom.

She would really like to get it out. Soon.

Okay. I'm on my way.

So, first we spend an hour or so with the dead horse. Then take a short cut, a two-track that runs due east for five miles across a gardner's salt flat. Smooth sailing, except for the delays to watch six mountain plovers squabble over what appears to me to be ground identical to everything else around, but was apparently special to plovers. And a delay chasing a badger. (Badger won! Yes, it had a huge head start, and I was delayed grabbing a winter coat and the camera whilst restraining the heelers, but still, been a long time since I lost a race to a badger. Gettin' old. And fat.)

A few miles further east, I am surprised to see water in the dry lake bed south of the road. Seen water there before, but it's been rare. Didn't think we got that much moisture the past week.

So I stop and grab the binocs, to see if there are any interesting migrant birds using the interim water.

And watch the water evaporate through the huge lenses. Fading from blue to grey, from right to left, as if a curtain was slowly being drawn back.

Fooled you.

Yeah, I see mirages all the time. Pools on roads, shimmering salt flats. But this one had me. I really thought that was blue water out there.

And it wasn't even up to 40 degrees yet.

Anyway, it is after noon when we head out of town to collect the hawk.

Woman lives on one of the ranchettes on the road to the gas plant. She was sure I could find it, since it was the double-wide blue and white trailer across the road from two other houses.

So, as I drive south nearing the plant, I see the blue and white double-wide trailer on the east side of the road, the second ranchette down. With two trailers across the road.

But one of those across the road is another blue and white double-wide trailer, with maybe a little less blue.

Two trailers each side of the road. A blue and white double-wide also on each side.

Great.

I stop at the first blue and white one, on the east side, get out and knock.

No answer. The horse in the corral is getting nervous about the two heelers hanging out the window, savoring horse smells.

Yeah, the coyote was eating one of those. They're made of meat. Those are food!

So we drive down the road and try the blue and white double-wide on the west side.

Woman is out on the deck, finishing up a smoke, watching me cross the road from her neighbors'.

"Knew you'd turn in there first. Everyone does," she smugly explains.

Well, you know, if you would tell everyone you live in the blue and white double-wide on the west side of the road, rather than just the "blue and white double-wide across the road from two other houses," maybe we wouldn't all stop at the closer blue and white double-wide house first.

But I didn't tell her that. Instead, I ask about the bird.

It's not as bad as I thought. They're repainting the house, and the hawk has taken ownership of an empty bedroom. So it isn't hopping and crapping all over furniture and stuff. But it has done a wonderful job of making sure all of its whitewash has missed the huge dropcloth, and instead hit the carpet. Along with dragging the bloody bones from the steak she fed it all along the exposed carpet.

See right away it's a Swainson's hawk. The brown bib and grey head with white chin and nose is an instant giveaway.

I like Swainson's. Another of those plains species that the experts kept telling me I didn't have in my country when I first started reporting them.

Yet here they are.

It's perched on a small box covered by the canvas dropcloth. I slip on my gloves, and make a grab.

Which results in the instant deathroll of the bird (deathroll, as in your death, as the hawk lays there with talons and beak pointed up).

The smart thing to do at this point is throw some cloth over the bird, to bind up the talons. But I need to look like I know what I'm doing here, so I just make a quick grab for the feet. And get one.

The other gets me.

But I'm wearing my leather gloves, remember?

But I am instantly reminded that these are my light-weight driving gloves from the pockets of the vest I'm wearing, not the heavy working pair which are in the coat. 'Cause I feel the sharp pain of a talon piercing the glove, and then piercing my left thumb, next to the nail.

No, I don't react. Too much dignity for that. No way this woman is going to know I screwed up. I act like we always grab hawks like this.

With the hawk maintaining a death grip on my left thumb, it was easy to shift the right hand over and grasp both feet. And slowly pry the talon from my flesh without being too obvious.

A quick exam of the bird finds no obvious injury, although it holds the right wing a little off, and does not want to fly. Terribly feisty bird, making threats with the beak, which is almost always a bluff with eagles, ferrugs, and redtails. But I don't know if Swainson's hawks bluff.

I keep fingers and face high above the beak.

Now, I've driven home with an eagle tucked under my arm, even with heelers in the rig. But they are going apeshit hyper over the ranch dogs, bouncing all over the cab, and the hawk is not settling down, either. I beg a box from the woman, and bury it and the hawk it holds under coats in the back seat.

Only after we have left their drive do I pull the glove off to check my thumb. Expecting to find a gush of blood.

One measly drop of blood, and a pinprick of a hole.

Felt bigger in that bedroom.

A block from home the bird starts rustling, which gets heelers flying over my shoulder to see what has snuck into the backseat of our truck. Had to throw them back forward, before someone got a nose bit or pinched.

Fortunately, the wife is home for lunch, so she helps me transfer the hawk to the pet carrier (using the heavy gloves this time), and then it's off we go to the Audubon folks in Central City. After a stop at McD's for a breakfast/lunch of double burgers. Guy next in line recognizes me, although it's been years since we hiked to Young's Pass together. Comments on my huge special order lunch. Had to explain to him, and the McD's staff, that half that was for the heelers.

And they don't like ketchup and mustard. Much less pickles and onions.

The avian rehab folks are a wonderful retired couple, getting up in years. Usually I just drop critters off and leave, but I've been meaning to stay and visit. This was as good a time as any. So we shared a cup of coffee along with tales of birding adventures and birding routes. While the newly arrived cockatiel hoped along the arm, shoulders and head of his new caretaker.

They have a great-horned owl chick that recently came into their hands. Which has been adopted by the resident great-horned owl, who has permanent injuries that prevent her release. The foster mother clacked and shivered at me as we peeked in at the white fuzzball, until I talked to her and calmed her down.

But she never took her attention off me. Audubon lady says having a foster mother really simplifies the caretaking of an owlet.

I'll bet.

On the drive home we pass the iron horse and rider, with their flag. I see his owners have added to his wardrobe in recent weeks.

We pull into town just minutes after eight o'clock. And I can already see the makings of a wonderful sunset, with the red rays highlighting the benches of the mountains just north of town.

We detoured a few blocks north, to the edge of town, parked diagonally across an intersection, and waited. And watched.

One of the most spectacular sunsets of the year.

Only when there was just a smidgeon of red still glowing in the west did we go home. Been a long day.