By Patrick O’Hannigan

When Morrisville gets mentioned in local lifestyle magazines, it’s usually for Indian food and easy access to Research Triangle Park. What magazine editors don’t seem to know is that Morrisville also has raptors. Tree stands, pocket meadows, and utility cut-throughs on the edge of town are patrolled by a red-shouldered hawk that I’ve seen often enough to call “Angie.”

I gave her that name in 2018 for two reasons: First, it’s what Crossfit enthusiasts call one of their toughest workouts, and hawks are basically the athletes of the bird world — only peregrine falcons look more sculpted in silhouette. Second, before joining “Murph” and other unlikely names on the Crossfit workout roster, Angie was best known as an iconic ballad by the Rolling Stones. No disrespect to Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, but nowadays I think of a hawk when the piano and guitar trading licks on the front porch of that song make space for Mick to sing, “Angie, Angie, When will these clouds all disappear?” followed by “Angie, Angie, Where will it lead us from here?”

Hawks could answer those questions, if we were more attuned to their music. Like rock ballad composers, raptors bring guns and roses to any party. Leather and lace. Talons and feathers. You can see a long way from atop utility poles, even if you’re only up there in your mind’s eye.

Where am I going with this? If you remember the song we’re talking about as vividly as I do, you’ll recall that it was sweetened with a string arrangement. Violins accompany Angie while she cuts blue ovals in the sky with all the languid mastery at her command. And when she stoops to conquer, as medieval falconers taught some of us to say, Angie rarely misses.