Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Talon show

I love living in Cambridge. I was walking into Inman Square. Had my head down to look for icy patches, and suddenly I see a movement to my right. There, sitting on a fence, was a hawk, eating a pigeon. He looked at me - we were just about eye level - as if to say, "Yeah, lady? Whadya want?" I'm afraid I went "eep," and he flew off, right in front of me - INCHES away – across very urban Inman Square, to finish his meal on the awning of Cambridge Family Health Center. Not a healthy place for pigeons, I guess.

I watched him for a while, along with a few other people – a man unloading a truck who confessed to being a little afraid of him (I pointed out that the hawk would be scarier if it were still hungry), a woman who had my reaction when we pointed the hawk out ("eep!" followed by laughter), another who said that she sees hawks all the time from her office window - and the ground below is always littered with pigeon bits! - and a guy in a car who looked up and asked, "Is that a gull?" Oh, please.

(This is a US Wildlife photo. Substitute in a busy city intersection, hawk sitting first on wire fence, then on purple awning.)

3 comments:

karen said...

Very cool, to see one so close. Even with the pigeon. When I worked at Fidelity we saw them all the time from the 13th floor window, on the roof of the floor below us.

Clea Simon said...

I've never been so close to one before. It was wild, in every sense! I think we were about two feet from each other and truly eye to eye. I could see his little nostrils and inside his beak!

He flew away, but I blinked first.

Caroline said...

Oh, this is SO cool! My only bird interaction was with the wild parrots who live in Brooklyn, nesting by the electric cables and stuff!