Hawks

"From behind a ridge, a hawk swung to hover where the sun turned its wings golden."
-Poul Anderson, The Avatar, L, p. 404.

"Far above them, a hawk at hover caught glow on its wings."
-Poul Anderson, The Winter Of The World (London, 1980), I, p. 9.

Compare:

The End Of A Stone In Heaven
Belated Blogging And The Spiral Arm

There is:

a fangryf with light burning gold off its feathers on Merseia;
a bird of prey, its wings made gold by sunlight, on Unan Basor;
a hawk with wings aglow above the High Sierra;
a hawk with wings turned golden by the sun in Ireland;
a hawk catching glow on its wings during the Ice Age.

These hunting birds reflect what intelligent beings are doing on the ground below.