The mergence of technology and nature. A thought of what could become, and what should always remain sacred. Photo taken in Ocean Beach, CA.

A few days ago while walking and talking with my friend Nick I suddenly heard a loud swooooshhhh as something passed by. I looked up, and to my surprise, a hawk appeared in the sky.

We walked over to take a look as it was perched on the fence of the baseball field.

I looked at the hawk and was amazed at it’s ability to turn it’s head more than 180 degrees. It was a big bird and was constantly checking it’s surroundings.

As I watched the hawk look intensely at everything around it, I wondered…what does a hawk see? I thought of the common phrase…’hawk-eyed vision’.

What if we could have embedded technology in hawks to see what they see? What if we could video stream their vision to get a hawk’s view of the world? What if we used the actual hawk as a means of surveillance?

As these thoughts came to my mind, Nick and I continued to admire the hawk for several minutes. I discussed with him the possibility of embedding technology in the hawk to see what it sees. I was excited about the idea. I thought to myself…maybe this is where the future will go?

A few minutes passed, and we continued to look at the big bird perched above us. I decided that I wanted to capture a picture of the hawk with the technology I had in my hand…my iPhone.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, turned on the camera function, and was just about to snap a photo until suddenly the hawk disappeared.

The hawk had impeccable timing in regards to the conversation.

Maybe the hawk told me that birds should be birds, and that technology-hawk-birds is taking technology a little too far.

I can never be sure, but it was convincing.