“We locked together. We connected.”

Heather Durham describes an intimate moment with a goshawk in her work as a raptor researcher on Goshute Mountain peak in Nevada:

“Standing and firming my grip around wing tips and legs, I stepped back into the sunlight. I slowly pulled the can off her, and her head whipped around to face me. We were eye to eye. Squinting blue eyes, sunburned and freckled skin, wide smile. Unblinking red eyes, feathers the color of pewter streaked with ash, mouth open, silent. We locked together. We connected.”

from “Catch and Release,” in the 2021 issue of Deep Wild Journal, forthcoming this June. For ordering info, visit deepwildjournal.com/subscribe.