Interesting. I'm more of a peregrinen falcon person myself. My mom was in the hospital in St Louis years back up in the top floors. I could watch them all day exploding pigeons in mid air with binoculars.
My office is an 'L' shaped building with a chain link fence around the parking lot, tall trees around the perimeter, a block from the beach - every Monday morning there's seagull feathers and bird poop on the ground where the falcons swoop in and eat some dumbass seagull that was scavenging in our trash. I find bird heads with the spinal column attached, bones picked clean and mystery organs all the time. Very cool birds (the falcons). Never caught one in the act of pigeon or seagull murdering, but the feathers, bird parts and poop are a pretty sure sign of what's happening.
One of the funniest things I've ever seen is one day I'm on the back porch at home and there's a squirrel on the top of the fence, a big hawk lands 5 feet away, squirrel freezes, hawk is totally still, turns its head 180 degrees and is staring down the squirrel - both stayed absolutely still for a couple minutes until the hawk flew away. It was like the last scene of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly', with the Mexican standoff. I am jealous, I've never seen the actual killing.
The old ladies in the neighborhood have a lot of bird feeders, bird houses and flowers. So every spring the songbirds are chirping like crazy... until a hawk found their oasis this summer. It was a total massacre, in the first week the small birds chased the hawk from tree to tree trying to distract it from the nests.
By the end of the week, no more birds chirping in the morning. And the hawk corpse camped what was left for a month. It even pried open one of the roofs of a bird house.
It was much more entertaining than watching pro sports.
Interesting. I'm more of a peregrinen falcon person myself. My mom was in the hospital in St Louis years back up in the top floors. I could watch them all day exploding pigeons in mid air with binoculars.
My office is an 'L' shaped building with a chain link fence around the parking lot, tall trees around the perimeter, a block from the beach - every Monday morning there's seagull feathers and bird poop on the ground where the falcons swoop in and eat some dumbass seagull that was scavenging in our trash. I find bird heads with the spinal column attached, bones picked clean and mystery organs all the time. Very cool birds (the falcons). Never caught one in the act of pigeon or seagull murdering, but the feathers, bird parts and poop are a pretty sure sign of what's happening.
Oh man you gotta see it. It's like watching an A10 on a firing dive except they run into the target at like 140 mph. Its.... beautiful.
One of the funniest things I've ever seen is one day I'm on the back porch at home and there's a squirrel on the top of the fence, a big hawk lands 5 feet away, squirrel freezes, hawk is totally still, turns its head 180 degrees and is staring down the squirrel - both stayed absolutely still for a couple minutes until the hawk flew away. It was like the last scene of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly', with the Mexican standoff. I am jealous, I've never seen the actual killing.
The old ladies in the neighborhood have a lot of bird feeders, bird houses and flowers. So every spring the songbirds are chirping like crazy... until a hawk found their oasis this summer. It was a total massacre, in the first week the small birds chased the hawk from tree to tree trying to distract it from the nests.
By the end of the week, no more birds chirping in the morning. And the hawk corpse camped what was left for a month. It even pried open one of the roofs of a bird house.
It was much more entertaining than watching pro sports.