The speaker reveals deep feeling, a mixture of respect and concern for nature that never slips into that corny sentimentality you might come to expect from your garden-variety tree hugger. He is a cool customer. In fact, we bet he wouldn't be offended by any comparisons to a hawk, as long as you don't make fun of his beady eyes. He's got that kind of self-assurance verging on arrogance. When he sneers at "you communal people" (15) you know he's not talking about himself. He sees himself as an adamant outsider. A lone wolf… or hawk as it were.
In the first line of the second stanza, the speaker enters the poem with a personal announcement, "I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk" (18). This is someone who is law-abiding, but solidly on the side of the natural world. You might call him a predecessor to an eco- activist. He's that kind of radical.
Then, in line 22, he says, "We had fed him for six weeks, I gave him freedom." Here he sounds like a caring family man, one who has tried to nurse this creature back from his injury, while also allowing the animal its freedom. While tending the animal, he has the utmost respect, which he demonstrates in the final act, by finally shooting the hurt hawk.