"The Waiting Time"

Awaiting the return of my favorite bird

A red-tailed hawk.

“March is the waiting time,” begins David Gessner’s Return of the Osprey—and indeed I am waiting.

I have spent the winter looking for all manner of birds: obsessing over harriers, pondering eagles, scanning farmland for kestrels—smiling at goldeneyes, appreciating mockingbirds, and greeting the birds at my feeder each morning. But I am …