Good Writing

If someone granted my wish to be a better writer, I would wish to write like Pluvialis at Fretmarks. Her recent story about flying her goshawk is another fine example of what she can do with words that I can only aspire to. In addition, the story comes with a recipe for pheasant that I am looking forward to trying. I have been waiting for inspiration for the birds in the freezer from my opening day hunt with two good friends prior to my departure to Antarctica and this is it.
Pluvialis also wrote one of the my favorite pieces of writing of all time with her description of a goshawk in an essay entitled "A Walk through the Woods". Below is an excerpt but please read the whole story.

"I wandered back to camp, had a snooze, compared bird notes, smoked a cigarette and had a cup of coffee. Halimjan made soup for lunch; there it was, bubbling in the cast-iron pot over the gas flame and we were sitting around our red plastic table chewing on stale bread waiting for the soup, and all our heads went up at once. A noise like ripping, tearing hessian, like a European Jay, only with real terror in it, was coming towards us right there and we watched — and slow as syrup and fast as a blink all at once, came the male gos trying his damnest to catch a magpie; they flashed right through the trees in front of the table, and gos nearly had a foot to the magpie before he saw us — five humans and a fire and a truck and a Giant Red Table right below him — ack! — wave off! wave off! — and the magpie dove downwards to the fork of a branch, crouching like a man avoiding a blow, and the gos spooled away through the trees. He looked like a coin falling through water, flashing silver and grey. Some kind of metal. A very fierce one. Potassium, Sodium, Goshawk."