Nature played with wind and rain and tossed harsh reality on Mama Hawk as she possessively settled over the three eggs. Papa Hawk hunted before the storm and had fortified her with nourishment. Mama Hawk hunched lower. Rain rapped at her feathers, but then dripped though the construction of twigs and branches. Violent air whistled across the same crevices, but the nest lining of leaves and evergreen needles shifted but remained intact.

Papa Hawk hovered by the nest. With the first crack of lighting, he moved even closer. With the second loud boom, he cushioned his frame against the twigged habitat to shield Mama Hawk and the eggs. The storm lasted for hours.

There is not always a rainbow at the end of a storm, but there is often a sense of relief. Papa Hawk cautiously moved away from the nest and positioned himself on another branch, before he briskly shook himself. Satisfied with his defensive storm performance, he puffed his feathers and peered down at Mama Hawk, watching her ruffle her feathers.

Thankful the rain had stopped plummeting down on her, Mama Hawk cautiously raised herself off the eggs. Just two remained.

One had been crushed!

Dismayed, she stretched her wings, rose with a fast moving current and flew away from the nest and from Papa Hawk. She had been so careful, but still one of the eggs had been destroyed. Her first nesting and it had already gone awry. How could she face Papa Hawk? She had killed an egg!

Papa Hawk sensed distress and looked down at the nest. Where there had been three, he now saw two. As Mama Hawk glided farther away from him, Papa Hawk swiftly ascended and chased after her.