Night Hawks in the Night

Not to make too much about it, but when I woke up about 4 a.m. to open the windows after a thunderstorm I lay in bed listening to nighthawks flying in the night.  Obviously they aren't nesting near us, and the scouts were probably checking out a wider range, following the rain, but I was so pleased to know that the birds still nest in the city.

Earlier in the evening we had gone to see Le Sel de la terre, a very fine movie about the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado.  He gained his reputation with tough photos from the conflict and famine regions of the world, but in the last decade has turned to taking pictures of the glory of the planet.  This desire to make the world a better place has found concrete expression in the refurbishing of the land his family own in the central region of Brazil.

The film includes an interview with Salgado's father who says that he educated his seven children on the proceeds of wood which once covered the land.  At the time he spoke, the hills were denuded and erosion was rampant.  But since then Salgado and his family have reforested it, a demonstration that at least some of the destruction we've wrought can be reversed.

So there's some hope for this summer day.