Home is a basket in a wreathe of leaves

Fire swept over Scranton's East Mountain this spring. Dry winds carried the scorched-earth smell over the city on great rolling smudges of smoke for two days.

When fire trucks began blaring up our street toward the woods bordering Connell Park, I worried about the hawks. This is the third year in a row I've watched a pair of Coopers or sharp-shins (I've never determined which) nest in a little sash of mature hardwoods that rests over our mountain ridge in South Side.

The female had not begun incubating yet, but I wondered how the smoke would affect them. She'd been staying close to the nest at that point - turning the sustenance her mate provided into eggs. I didn't see either bird for three days after the fire, but on the fourth, I could clearly see her black tail poking out of that great strong basket of sticks.

For now and for a while, there isn't much to see - just a barred tail, sticking out like a little gun barrel in a different direction each morning. A change of scenery, I suppose. What I would give to see the city from her point of view... I leave the window open at night to hear the wind and the rain, and I think of her swaying up there - sleet, lightning, sun and shocking heat.