Golden Hour: Scribbles from Whalers Cove

Behind me, our life giving twenty-eight million degree nuclear reactor buries itself into the Knoll.
Before me, a chilly, buttery glow blazes across the undulations of the Cove.
It settles into expectant sedimentary bluffs and crevices ... while an invigorating forty-five degrees settles into my bones.
Magic hour.
Like an alarm has sounded, everyone and everything seems to freeze in place. 
Breaths come slowly, if at all, and a perceptible hush mingles with the shadows inching across golden sparkles in the waves.
Another member of the audience and I stop a few feet apart on the small bridge.
We stare.  We nod heads in wonder.  We listen.  Maybe we even cry a little.
To maintain a PG rating, I will simply say a pair of otters catch our eye. 
They playfully roll and slice through the kelp and waves beneath our feet, frisky and energetic.
Seals bottle and snooze.  Gently, softly, a Snowy Egret floats along the surface kelp. 
He pounces and dinner is served with a visible swallow.
Amazingly, a Red-shouldered Hawk alights on a young Monterey Pine, not 10 feet from us. 
He waits. 
We wait. 
And wait some more as gold imperceptibly turns to rust.
Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes pass.
Then, a chirping squeal fills the air. 
Our “resident” Osprey has discovered the Hawk.
“Ozzy” swoops.  Squeals again, and the air is filled with a flurry of wings beating hard against the invisible currents of their world.  Two rockets quickly circle and rise and disappear over a 4 point buck and the 3 fellow black tailed deer that follow through Carmelo Meadow.
 
Just another day in the Reserve.
 
"I am the hawk ... and all those who see me, all who believe in me ... share in the freedom I feel when I fly."  John Denver