Sometimes in the Summer, after a long day of printing, chance will find me sitting in the grassy back yard here at The  Nomadic Press. As the day’s heat falls away, and with a sweaty beer in my hand, I have sat and watched the colors of the sky change and listened to the sounds of evening in the city.

One of the evening sounds that I have taken comfort in over the years has been the sound of a pair of resident nighthawks as they dive and roll across the sky in their dinnertime play. For those who do not know the sound of a nighthawk’s dance in the air, it is a whoosh and a hum and a buzz and it says Summer evening in the same way that a cicada’s whine says hot day.

I was up on the roof of the print shop recently, just checking to make sure all was in good order, and I was startled by the sudden rise of an adult nighthawk. She jumped up and came down a short distance away dragging her wings in an obvious attempt to get me to come after her.

Instead, I looked around and found, sitting right at my feet, these two chicks looking as much like a gravel roof as two fluffy, feather-clad birds could possibly look. 

I look forward to listening to these two frolicking in next Summer’s post-print-run evening air, above me and the print shop and an end-of-the-day beer.