Escher Hawk (A to Z, E)

He watches the hawk wheel through the air and then, in the wink of an eyes, it was halfway across the meadow and diving on its prey.  He rubs his eyes.  What had just happened?

These hunting birds have gained unusual abilities, they tend to cluster is out of the way places away from civilization and large numbers of people.  The Escher Hawks tend to self-organize in groups whose numbers are always prime numbers for reasons that are unknown.

While a good size for hawks, it is their ability to adjust space and spacial relations around themselves that makes them most intriguing.  The Escher Hawks seem to be able to skip from one place to another without directly crossing the intervening space simple moving from one place to another, though they can only such while on the wing.  When on a surface, be it the ground or a tree or a cliff, they seem to be able to orient themself as they choose.  Walking straight up a wall or on the underside of a branch for example, their nests and eggs also have similar properties allow them to be placed in places that are difficult for less . . . spacially adept creatures to access.

With such odd and useful abilities, the Escher Hawks are sought out by magic workers and natural philosophers alike to try and understand how their abilities work and how to master them.  Unfortunately for such people, the abilities of the Escher Hawks make they very difficult to cupture, they skip through nets and snares, this is the only time they use that ability when not flying and it seems to be entirely reflexive.  While not, it seems, sentient, they are very adept at using their abilities to confound and confuse those who would hunt or confine them.

Consuming the flesh or eggs of an Escher Hawk causes distortion of perception in regards to space and relations some of which can be quite long lasting.

Notes: Something from a different angle, you might say.

Image Series of Prints with Flowers and Animals in a Landscape – Rijksmuseum, Netherlands – Public Domain.