The bird is a mouse. A frustrating, feathered mouse, no more inclined to be seen by mortal eyes than your average leprechaun. - Pete Dunne

It’s hard to recall now that this environmental beacon was once a battlefield and that there was a time when people did not understand the important role birds of prey play in maintaining natural balance. It’s difficult to believe that people’s ignorance was so complete that they thought of hawks as vermin and shot them on sight.

She didn’t ask why I left, because that’s a silly question. I left for the same reason all people leave home. Because one day you realize that all the old habits have become too familiar. Because there is a world of discovery waiting and the first step toward the future is a step away from the past. So you leave. Go chasing rainbows, never thinking that maybe one end of a rainbow is just as good as another.

So I came, in time, to disbelieve the Myth of Infinite because I know, now, that the resources of a continent are more finite than human greed. I discovered that freedom can be twisted, can mean that anything a person can grab is his and to hell with everyone else. I learned that the twisted freedom that allows people to destroy a place conflicts with my freedom to appreciate it and the freedom of other living things to survive.