old photo from somewhere on flickr
Geese, of course, are not the only birds that migrate, raptors do, too. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says that about 4,000 species of birds migrate, about 40% of the total population.There has been a lot of raptor activity here lately. There's a hawk that has been hanging out in the woods behind the house. You see them when driving around, sitting on telephone poles...watching. The other day it was very windy, and we saw four large raptors, high in the sky, riding the thermals over the hill in the back, and then, when they reached a sufficient altitude, slowly moving northward.
There is something very compelling and mysterious about witnessing this activity. These birds travel thousands of perilous miles, twice a year. The urge to migrate is a very powerful force that we, as humans, can't really understand.
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