The pine snag in the pasture is one of the tallest objects in the area, second only to the living pine a few yards away. The snag has rotted branches jutting high in many directions. Its trunk is peppered with woodpecker holes. From the barn, you can see sky through some of them.

I was chasing down a kite I'd seen in the pecan tree in the front yard-a much grayer bird than the one I saw the other morning. After it flew to the pasture, I'd dug out my binoculars and two field guides. But instead of the kite, I found on the snag a yellow-shafted northern flicker, glowing like freckled bronze in the sun.

It wasn't until the flicker ducked out that I let my binoculars wander up the snag. I was startled to find the kite, blending in with the smooth barkless part of the trunk.

She wasn't very big-in fact I wondered if I hadn't mistaken a dove for a raptor. She was smoothly gray, grooming her breast feathers and behind the shoulder parts of her wings. But the dark fierce hooded eyes, the curved beak, the sense of intelligent self-awareness could not belong to a dove.

I consulted the guides to confirm identification-a Mississippi Kite for sure. I looked up to enjoy her beauty again. She was perched on a branch of the snag-the binoculars brought her close to me-and boom! Another kite had landed on her back. She didn't seem surprised. I was stunned.

The male spread the feathers of his wings, as though sheltering her. They remained rather still for some seconds, and he flew off.

This happened four times-each time a quietness, each time the pale white-headed male sheltering the female with his open-fingered wings. There was no sense of taking, or action versus passivity. Maybe there was union. If this was a mating, it was a very gentle mating.