Around here, hawks are common in suburbia, and they use the heat rising off pavement to ascend, so you often see them circling overhead when driving on an interstate.
Also, i sometimes see one hanging out near my bird feeder. Red tailed and Cooper’s hawks are the two that frequent my back yard.
As for weirdest starting conditions that I’ve ever experienced, i once played a game called “panty raid”, and the rules said the person wearing the most interesting underwear went first. One woman said, “oh, that’s me” and her husband said, “yes it is!” None of the rest of us contested her claim.
Woe betide the husband who, in such a situation, does not agree.
@Alessan , if you’ve been to the Blue Ridge Mountains, there probably was a hawk in your line of sight at some point. But you might not have noticed it.
Probably true. But when she made the claim, i figured they were just more interesting than the boring white things i wear. Looking at his face as he agreed, i became really curious exactly how interesting they were.
As of a couple days ago I’d only win if it included Bald Eagles, since I saw one confirmedly for the first time in the wild recently. Here in Central Florida there is a population in the wild, and people have occasionally pointed them out to me from afar, but until recently I never got close enough to them to see their distinctive heads. Until one swooped past me like 100 feet away in the middle of suburbia where I did get a close look.
Chicago is full of Peregrine Falcons these days. It’s the official bird of the city. They love the skyscrapers. And if you’re lucky you might see one dive-bomb a pigeon.