As the young hawks grew, their mobility increased, and they learned how to take advantage of the works of man. A few weeks before they left us, I found one of them brazenly drinking from an ornamental fountain in the center of a Sagewood courtyard. Instead of moving in on the hawk, I walked well away from it, and photographed it at a 200mm focal length. I used my spot meter to expose on the brightest part of this image, allowing much of the image to fall into shadow.

The result becomes a lyrical landscape image, as well as a documentary photograph. It places the hawk, illuminated by a golden shaft of early morning light, within the world it will soon come to know quite well. This fledgling will probably spend the rest of its life moving between the open desert and places such as this, where it will bathe and drink in water harnessed and displayed by man.

As May turned into June, the family of four hawks departed from Sagewood. The nest and its accompanying layers of guano were removed, and the apartment building was cleaned. No traces of these hawks are left. However our memories of the event, bolstered by these documentary images, will always remain with us.