My first close encounter with a hawk took place over 30 years ago. I was walking on the small hill next to the university where I was a grad student, looking at birds. After spotting several small birds, I turned my head and a chill ran down my spine—on a branch 5 meters away sat a hawk looking straight at me. The bird was not large, but its intense stare cast a spell, and I froze. A scene from The Jungle Book immediately came alive in my mind. I felt like one of the monkeys who were mesmerized and helpless as soon as their eyes met those of a hundred-year-old python. I did not step involuntarily toward the hawk, as the monkeys in the story were drawn toward the python, but the hawk’s large yellow iris, evoking fear and wonder at the same time, was burned into my memory. I was so engrossed by the experience that I don’t think I attempted to identify the hawk at all at the time. Looking back, it was likely an Accipiter virgatus fuscipectus , the endemic subspecies of Bersa in Tai