Today I saw something that both shocked and surprised the blazes out of me. While leaving out for work, I saw this rather large bird flying towards me with somethingt in its claws. At first I thought it was some kind of crow that had something it had picked out of the garbage with it. When this thing came closer, I saw that this thing was not a crow, this thing was a Hawk, a very large hawk that had killed a pigeon and was carrying it in its talons. This thing flew straight towards me and landed in a branch right in front of the building I was standing in front of, then just sat there staring at me.

I've seen things like this on television shows before, but never in person.. never in the city.
:eek:

I see HUGE hawks all the time up here in the sticks... Beautiful creatures.

(EDIT: Of course we've also got deer and chipmunks and raccoons and foxes all over the place around our house...)

In high school many many moons ago. I got into a year long dispute with my english teacher my junior year. So I ended up in summer school. My granmother would pick me up afterwards,funny how failing a class got my driving privileges revoked, and yet I never thought of turning Dad into the authorities.

One afternoon while waiting for grandma, I caught a glimpse of several birds along the tree tops. Several dark colored birds were flying somewhere, when from out of nowhere this much larger bird swooped down on the last one in the formation. After smashing the bejeezus out of the little guy, the hawk backed off, the little bird was stunned but tried to get away. No good the hawk had flown back around and up coming down for with blistering speed and percision for the kill shot. The smaller bird droped like a stone. The hawk swooped around once more and then dove towards the area where the little one had gone down.

Like you said, you see this stuff on tv, but when you catch it live it's amazing.

I occasionally saw hawks and ospreys when I lived in Florida. Never saw one killing anything, though; I'd generally see them gliding on some thermals.

Now that I live in Chicago, pigeons are pretty much all that pass for wildlife, though I've seen some geese wandering around lately.

Many hawks nest on ledges of high-rise office buildings in downtown districts. Had a bosslady once who was a bird-watcher and she pointed them out to me, soaring high over Dallas' central business district... hardly noticable. She said they feed on mice and rats... also numerous in most downtown areas. There are often huge colonies of bats that live among high-rise buildings as well. As humans encroach on wild creatures habitats, they learn to not only survive... but many times thrive in their new urban settings. (The best story I heard was the time a huge turkey-buzzard landed on the balcony of the penthouse board-room of our building and panicked because he couldn't get back over the rails. CEO called security to come free him and as soon as they opened the access door, the bird started throwing up all over the place. *snicker* Seems he had the same opinion of upper management most of the rest of us had!)

;)
SMW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_%28film%29