A hawk moved into the tall pines near my brother's house. I wouldn't have thought that a residential street a block from the center of town would suit a bird of prey. Hawks don't go to the bank or post office or the open-all-night drugstore. Or at least I don't think so. I have seen sparrows flying around inside WalMart.

My brother told me there were plenty of chipmunks about, although not as many as before the hawk moved in. He's right. When we sat out on the front porch for an hour my mom and I watched a chipmunk running around the yard. I half expected a feathered death machine to drop out of the sky and carry the poor animal off, bleeding and squealing, in its cruel talons. I was relieved when the chipmunk vanished into its hole under the forsythia.

I learned that hawks make a noise that sounds like an asthmatic blowing on a broken penny whistle. Over and over and over. This hawk whistled from morning until night. Usually I couldn't spot him in the trees, but one afternoon I heard him whistling as he circled overhead.

Why should a hawk whistle while he works? Wouldn't it alert his prey and frighten them back into the safety of their burrows?

Unless that particular whistle is actually chipmunk for "the coast is clear."