If you have been to a hawkwatch in New England during mid-September you will have heard people talk knowingly about kettles. Perhaps the term was explained to you as the collective noun for a tight group of thermaling hawks, but that doesn’t tell you about the etymology of this strange phrase. I have heard the kitchen kettle used as metaphor to describe the ascent of hawks to the heavens. They rise up on a thermal of warm air as steam rises from a pot of boiling water. Reading the wonderful book by Maurice Broun about Hawk Mountain, which lays just claim to being the epicenter of hawk study and conservation in North America, you find a different answer. According to Broun, at Hawk Mountain the hawks are wont to rise from a valley known to early settlers as the Kessel. A couple of Chinese whispers later and a new collective noun entered the lexicon. Kettle of One refers to my own journey, though I will be joined by friends for various legs along the way. More later.