Hawks are making a comeback in cites. I live in Chicago and in the alley behind me lives a barn owl or barn owls. I’ve seen them there for the last three years. You can hear them and if you look long and hard you can see him. He hides pretty well.
With all the rats and mice and pigeons I’m not amazed the cities of America aren’t full of birds of prey and owls.
Raptors are freakin’ awesome. We get a lot of them out here (Forest Grove, OR, about 30 miles west of Portland) - kestrels, peregrine, red-tail, osprey, eagles, etc. A few years ago a bald eagle nabbed someone’s cat out of their backyard, right in front of their kids.
A couple years ago, a red-tail caught a gopher from the field behind our house, and it parked on our fence and chowed down. And I got some pretty badass pictures, if I do say so myself.
Last summer, my daughter and I sat down to eat lunch in front of the big picture window that faces the back yard. In the space of, oh, 15 minutes, we saw 2 different types of hawks take out 3 birds and nearly get one squirrel from our neighbor’s bird feeders. The Cooper hawk proceeded to land on the deck and rip apart his bird right in front of us. The hawks ate very well that day; we did not.
My daughter now refers to the neighbor’s bird haven as Birdie Auschwitz.
A hawk hit our house a few weeks ago and busted out half of the bedroom window. We were sitting watching the news and heard/felt a huge thump, went outside to see the big bird rolling and falling off our porch roof. Thought he was damaged, but just before he hit the ground he managed to get his wings righted and flew crookedly off. We couldn’t see any damage and figured he’d just tried for a squirrel running across the porch roof.
The next day when it was bright, we saw the huge hole in the window. Thankfully, it was a double-paned thermal one, and the interior glass held or we’d have been quite chilly while we waited for the repair.
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed.
Maybe it wasn’t. I’ve lived in Florida a long time and have seen many osprey so can ID them, but maybe it was a large hawk. I was more focused on the poor little bunny than on the bird.
Interesting article/photo from Scotland in the news yesterday:
Takeaway meal: golden eagle snatches lamb from hillside
My daughter and I heard a loud thump at the window, turned and watched a Coopers Hawk dissect a dove 6 feet away from our couch. The intense red eyes, deep navy and steel grey chevrons on the wing were just magnificent. Tiny tufts of dove feathers were spread in a large circle around him. He’d reaquire the carcass, digging his talons in and rip chunks of flesh as he kept an eager eye all around. After 30 minutes he flew off with what was left. Amazing, and a real education for the kid.
During a beach cleanup, there was an awesome raptor moment. A middle aged couple was in their waders fishing. The guy was out above his waist but the lady was only out to above the knee. While I was picking up some garbage I heard a splash and the lady shouted. I turned just in time to see an osprey with a fish rising from the water right next to the lady. Like, three feet away. It then rose quickly, passing directly over me about ten feet up.
Freaking awesome.
I lived here for many years (blue house). The view from the upstairs window out to that field afforded many an opportunity to see red-tails taking off from the trees on the right, swooping low and grabbing a gopher from the ground and landing in branches to the left to eat them. Happened all the time, and was quite impressive.
As a teen many years ago, I was walking home down a dry creek bed through the woods.
A small barred owl flew over my shoulder, landed on a branch a few yards ahead and watched me.
I kept walking, and he repeated his act, following me all the way home. He stayed in a tree while I went inside, grabbed some chicken from the fridge and put it out on our patio table.
Anyone else’s mom think a giant ATT spool made a good patio table?
Anyway, I backed off & he came down and started eating. He left after a while, but was back a couple of days later. I found something else for him, and he ate it. I would never see him, but sometimes I’d put something out & whistle, and he’d come from somewhere nearby & eat.
Eventually, I stopped feeding him, thinking he would get too dependant, but he didn’t mind.
My mother had more bird feeders and water features than any aviary, so there were always birds around.
Every few days, we’d be sitting outside and he’d buzz in, grab a bird in mid-air, and come sit on the table and shred his catch. My poor mother would have a fit & yell at me to get that damn thing out of here. My dad & I would just laugh & watch him do his thing. Owls have to eat too, ya know.
I must say, I didn’t like it when he got a woodpecker or goldfinch or something pretty!
Eat the wrens! They’re plain!
I’ve never heard since of any wild bird taking to a person like that; I always thought I had a special purpose!
Why can’t they just eat mice and rats.
For that matter, why can’t you?
I do. They are tasty.
A building I used to work in had a nest of falcons on its roof. Prior to their tenancy, dirty sky-rat pigeons fertilized the sidewalks with impunity. But, as Og doth Love a Raptor, that did slowly change. Granted, in the first few months there were complaints from dumb-ass brokers who’d get red splotches on their suits while waiting outside for their car service, but in the end even those brokers learned some limited common sense.
Shame they weren’t Red-tailed Hawks though. I figure 2-3 could carry off a dumb-assed broker. Bonus points if the Asshat often said ‘win-win’. 
Ducati, that is so cool and special for that matter.
:eek:
Shortly after we moved into our house outside of Toronto my wife was on her way downstairs and paused at the door to admire our new backyard. She shrieked as a red-tail hawk took a neighbours pigeon out of the air and landed in our yard. We found another half dozen incidents over the next few years where a caught bird had been landed and then removed (splotches of feathers). I think they were mostly Mourning Doves…(the victims :smack:).
We also had the privilege(?) of watching a hawk rip apart a black squirrel in Niagara-on-the-Lake a couple of years ago.
Well, that’s just racist.
Shall we share our birdcam links here?
The Rochester (New York) FalconCam and the accompanying falcon watch blog follow the nesting cycle of a pair of peregrine falcons.
This might be the year that the OwlCam captures a new owl couple. Some guy in rural Massachusetts has an “owl friendly” nest box on his property and watches it with a supertelephoto lens and tiny cameras and microphones in and around the nest box. It has been inactive for a few years now after a critter predated the nest box but it looks like a young adult owl might set up housekeeping this year. I can also highly recommend his DVD, if you know any young persons who like animals.
Also the Bald Eagle cam in Decorah, Iowa has a pair already sitting on the nest, but I have only just discovered this one.
You’re talon me…
