Hawk in the city
I’m feeding my friends’ cats, and as I was leaving their place this morning, I glanced out the window to look at the top of the awning next door (I have an affection for an upside-down plastic alligator that’s been there for 2 years) and there was a hawk sitting there, with a torn up pigeon in its claws. Because of the arrangement of the buildings, it was about 8 feet away from me. I tried to get my camera out, but I guess the movement spooked it, so it flew away. I went outside and I could see the hawk up in a tree in the backyard:
I went back up into my friends’ place and out on the back porch and I was able to get a couple of shots there. If you look closely, you can see the pigeon:
(Hawk? Falcon? Eagle? I invite correction or specific identification from my bird-watching readers.)
Awesome. I had a similar experience at the Damen Brown Line stop a couple of years ago. It was like, 7am on a Saturday. No one else was on the platform and this gigantic hawk was perched on the protective overhang. It sat there for a few moments, looked at me, then took off. The wingspan on him was enormous. It’s definitely one of the coolest private moments I’ve had in the 10+ years I’ve been living in Chicago.
Well, it’s definitely not a peregrine falcon.