10 There Are Eggs And Trouble

IN WHICH There Are Eggs And Trouble Two days later Frightful laid a second egg. Again she did not incubate it. Without her warmth, the embryos could not develop. Nevertheless they needed attention, and she turned them every three or four hours. The turning twisted the ropelike chalzas attached to each end of the yolk and to the shell. This twisting tightened the chalzas and kept the yolks suspended in the middle of the albumen so that they did not stick to the inner shell. Frightful pulled a feather from her breast and watched it blow off on a wind. Before she lay the first egg, both she and 426 had lost so many feathers on their breasts that these areas were naked and bare. These were brood patches. Both parents would brood the eggs. Warmer than feathers, the bare skin would raise the eggs to seventy degrees Fahrenheit. At that mystical temperature, life would start.

The day Frightful laid the second egg was cold. Nevertheless, she and 426 left the eggs and flew off to the courthouse cupola. 426 saw the pigeon ladies come out of their house and the pigeons flock to meet them. He dove. The pigeons scattered. Frightful watched from above the trees. She saw a bird fly away from the others in confusion, dove at it, and missed. Later that day they were successful in their cooperative hunting. Frightful caught a rat. That night was very cold. Frightful stood over the eggs, not sitting on them to start incubation, but protecting them from the freezing air. She let her long breast feathers and pantaloons make a tent around them as she stood. Her brood patch was swollen and soft with a jellylike fluid. Three days after the second egg was laid, Frightful laid a third. When she stood up to look at the rich colors and exciting shapes of her clutch, her knees bent. She sat down. Her brood patch fit gently around the eggs like a soft hot-water bottle. Long feathers that had developed around her brood patch dropped around the eggs like a down

comforter. They kept the warmth in and the cold out. Around noon the peregrine eggs reached seventy degrees. Miraculously, inside each egg one cell became two, two became four, then eight. Life was exploding in its various and complicated ways. Frightful sat tight. That afternoon 426 became provider and helper. He flew off alone and came back with food. He fed her, then she stood up. He sat down and brooded the eggs. Frightful flew up and down the river, then winged over the one hemlock, calling to Sam. When she was well exercised, she returned to the scrape. 426 got up. Frightful sat down on the precious eggs. Around six o'clock the next morning 426, who was sleeping near the top of the bridge against a vertical web, awoke. He checked Frightful and flew off to hunt. Sam saw him go. He walked onto the bridge and whistled. Frightful did not answer. "I know you're there," he said. "I've been watching you from Federal Hill."

Frightful was quiet. The longer she incubated, the more deeply she went into the trance of incubation. Only 426 could bring her out of it, and only to eat and fly briefly. Sam whistled again. Still no answer. He grinned. Frightful, he knew, was now incubating. "Good girl," he said aloud; then to himself, "At last I know for sure that she is not so deeply imprinted on me that she could not mate and raise eyases. I am so, so glad. I did not destroy her wildness after all." Whistling, Sam swung off the bridge and dropped to the water's edge, where he walked gracefully upriver, jumping stones and skirting marshes. He arrived at the path to Mrs. Strawberry's farm. Today was the day to plant her rye. The maple leaves were flowering. On May 8 a diesel truck, pulling a flatbed of lumber and roadblocks, crossed the Delhi Bridge and parked on the town side of the river. Workmen placed detour signs and orange cones on either end of the bridge, tied orange ribbons to webs, and conferred with their boss, Joe Cassini.

The cafe owner, Betty Christopher, drove up in her car and poked her head out the window. "What's all this about?" she asked Joe Cassini. "Bridge repair," he answered. "About time," she said. "The last couple of floods just about tore out the pilings. Gonna fix them, too?" "Yeah," Cassini answered. "The pilings are first." "I've been expecting them to go any day," said Betty Christopher, "and dump everyone on the bridge into the river. I'm glad you're here." "They're not that bad," laughed Joe Cassini. "But we're repairing this bridge and every other bridge in New York State. Even ones that hardly need it." "How am I going to get to work?" she asked. "I live on the mountain side of the bridge, not the town side." "We're setting up a detour. Turn around and cross on the lower bridge." "Gotcha," she said, and drove off. A week later the workmen finished the crib that would support the bridge while they replaced the pilings. No sooner was it up than a diesel truck

with air compressors pulled onto the bridge. Men with ear protectors picked up their jackhammers and tested them. Blasts shook the bridge. Frightful stood up. "There's a peregrine's nest on this bridge." It was Sam's voice below. She sat down. "So?" said Joe Cassini. "Well, peregrines are an endangered species," he said. "They are protected by law." "We ain't going to shoot them," Joe Cassini said. "But you'll scare them away," Sam replied. "Isn't there another bridge you could work on till the end of June?" "There are a lot of other bridges. But the Department of Transportation says we do this one —now." "Tell them peregrine falcons are nesting here. I'm sure when they hear that, they'll want to wait until the nesting season is over. These are very special birds." "You tell them," Joe Cassini said. "I don't know anything about that stuff." He gave orders to a